Part Five, Chapters 21-23, Summary and Analysis

Obama bet his political career on Obamacare and conservatives fought him at every turn, including in the courts, arguing the mandate was unconstitutional, an argument that did not exist until very recently. In preparation for legal challenges, Elena Kagan in a private email supported attempts to build a counterargument. The key conservative argument is that the commerce clause of Article I of the Constitution, which authorizes Congress to regulate commerce between the states, was meant to have a limited scope such that Congress was only permitted to regulate commerce when it concerned interstate economic transactions, not any transaction at all, especially not forcing people to buy private health insurance. For decades every act of Congress had passed the test. A threat to this wide reading threatened the activist government vision of many liberals.

Obama's lawyer...