Since the passage in March of the healthcare reform law, at least 14 states have filed lawsuits against the federal government claiming aspects of the law are unconstitutional.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will require individuals to purchase healthcare insurance or pay a penalty. According to drafters of the legislation, the mandate will lower the cost of insurance by expanding the pool of healthy individuals, thereby allowing insurance companies to cover individuals with pre-existing conditions.
Those who oppose the law say it’s unconstitutional to force individuals to buy health insurance.
So far, attorneys general in Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington have filed lawsuits.
The Obama administration doesn’t seem worried about the lawsuits. According to White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs, the president’s legal counsel has said the cases will not hold up in Supreme Court.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the lawsuits are nothing more than political strategies to advance GOP careers.
“I think the vast amount of lawsuits have been filed by attorneys general in states where they also have some interest in higher office,” she said at an April 7 press conference.
AARP officials have called the lawsuits “scare tactics.”
Jim Wordelman, Idaho’s state director for the AARP, said lawmakers there would hurt residents in their state who lack healthcare by rejecting federal efforts to provide coverage.
In Nevada, Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto has resisted Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons’ request to sue, saying she needs more time to study whether the case has merit.
In addition to the lawsuits, 42 states have introduced or announced plans to introduce legislation designed to block the federal healthcare reform law at the state level, according to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization which promotes limited government, free markets and federalism.
State lawmakers promoting such legislation say they are trying to block the healthcare reform law because they fear it could lead to rationed healthcare. They are modeling their rebuttal legislation after language crafted by ALEC in what is known as the Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act.
According to Christie Herrera, ALEC’s health task force director, the Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act has so far been enacted by Virginia, Idaho and Arizona and has been passed by one chamber in Georgia, Missouri and Tennessee.
Herrera said state-level constitutional amendments addressing the federal legislation would also appear on the November 2010 ballot in Oklahoma and Arizona.