To provide that the individual mandate under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act shall not be construed as a tax.

Amends the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) to provide that provisions of such Act imposing a penalty for failure to purchase minimum essential health care coverage shall not be construed as imposing any tax or as an exercise of any power of Congress under the Constitution to impose a tax. Makes the effective date of the amendment made by this Act retroactive to the enactment date of PPACA.

[Congressional Bills 112th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 6334 Introduced in House (IH)]

112th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 6334

To provide that the individual mandate under the Patient Protection and 
          Affordable Care Act shall not be construed as a tax.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             August 2, 2012

Mr. Labrador (for himself, Mr. Sensenbrenner, Mr. Roe of Tennessee, Ms. 
  Buerkle, and Mr. Bartlett) introduced the following bill; which was 
              referred to the Committee on Ways and Means

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To provide that the individual mandate under the Patient Protection and 
          Affordable Care Act shall not be construed as a tax.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds that on June 28, 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that 
the individual mandate imposed by section 1501 of the Patient 
Protection and Affordable Care Act (Public Law 111-148) and amended by 
section 10106 of such Act and sections 1002 and 1004 of the Health Care 
and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (Public Law 111-152), has 
certain functional characteristics of a tax and could be sustained as 
an exercise of Congress's power to tax under article I, section 8, 
clause 1 of the Constitution.

SEC. 2. CLASSIFICATION OF INDIVIDUAL MANDATE AS NON-TAX.

    (a) In General.--Section 1501 of the Patient Protection and 
Affordable Care Act (Public Law 111-148) is amended by adding at the 
end the following new subsection:
    ``(e) Rule of Construction.--Nothing in the amendments made by this 
section shall be construed as imposing any tax or as an exercise of any 
power of Congress enumerated in article I, section 8, clause 1 of, or 
the 16th amendment to, the Constitution.''.
    (b) Effective Date.--The amendment made by this section shall apply 
as if included in the enactment of section 1501 of the Patient 
Protection and Affordable Care Act.
                                 <all>