Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
President Obama barely barely had completed his signature on the health care reform bill before a collection of Republican (and one Democrat) state attorneys general filed a lawsuit to challenge the constitutionality of the Act on a specious "commerce clause" theory.
Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard refused to go along stating "Our lawyers agree with the overwhelming majority of constitutional scholars of both parties that the lawsuits have little merit, and that participating in them would be a waste of scarce taxpayer dollars."
The Accidental Governor threw a hissy-fit and tthreatened to hire her own lawyers to join this politically motivated lawsuit. Brewer wants OK to sue vs. health law
Brewer had no explanation for how the state of Arizona is going to pay the attorney's fees and costs for this frivolous lawsuit. I would suggest that these state attorneys general review the penalties for filing frivolous claims under Rule 11.
The best part is that the individual health insurance mandate provision that these obstructionist Republicans are challenging in court has long been advocated by conservatives, big business and the insurance industry. Individual health insurance mandate started as a Republican idea – Business Breaking News – MiamiHerald.com:
The lawsuit by [the state] attorneys general, focuses on the provision that virtually all Americans will need to have health insurance by 2014 or face penalties.
The lawsuit calls this an “unprecedented encroachment on the liberty of individuals.'' It states the Constitution doesn't authorize such a mandate, the proposed tax penalty is unlawful and is an “unprecedented encroachment on the sovereignty of the states.''
“The truth is this is a Republican idea,'' said Linda Quick, president of the South Florida Hospital and Healthcare Association. She said she first heard the concept of the “individual mandate'' in a Miami speech in the early 1990s by Sen. John McCain, a conservative Republican from Arizona, to counter the “Hillarycare'' the Clintons were proposing.
McCain did not embrace the concept during his 2008 election campaign, but other leading Republicans did, including Tommy Thompson, secretary of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush.
* * *
Among the other Republicans who had embraced the idea was Mitt Romney, who as governor of Massachusetts crafted a huge reform by requiring almost all citizens to have coverage.
“Some of my libertarian friends balk at what looks like an individual mandate,'' Romney wrote in The Wall Street Journal in 2006. “But remember, someone has to pay for the health care that must, by law, be provided: Either the individual pays or the taxpayers pay. A free ride on government is not libertarian.''
Still, the concept was gathering a strong momentum. The Business Roundtable, an association of chief executives of America's largest companies, supported it in the summer of 2008, thinking it much better than a broad requirement to force businesses of all sizes to offer coverage — something that could increase business costs and make them less competitive.
Others joined the bandwagon, including the liberal Service Employees International Union and the Commonwealth Fund, a nonpartisan nonprofit that studies American healthcare problems.
In November 2008, just days after Obama's landslide victory, America's Health Insurance Plans, a trade group, made a stunning announcement, saying it favored universal coverage and supported a law that would stop insurers from rejecting applicants because of preexisting conditions.
“Universal coverage is within reach,'' the group said in a historic press release.
After being adamantly opposed to reform during the Clinton years, AHIP said it had changed its mind — based on one condition: Any reform plan had to require that all individuals have insurance or pay stiff penalties.
AHIP's reasoning was simple: Many of the uninsured are healthy and under age 35. They either have jobs that don't offer insurance or they didn't pay for insurance because they were certain they wouldn't get sick.
Having this group in an insurance pool spreads risk. Without an individual mandate requiring them to get insurance, Americans could wait until they got sick and then sign up for insurance — a trend that would mean only sick people would be paying premiums while running up huge bills. In this scenario, healthy people would have no need to buy insurance — a financially disastrous situation for insurance companies.
The Obama administration saw that the mandate was the only way to get a reform package passed and it became a foundation of the legislation, along with subsidies for those who couldn't afford coverage.
John McCain proposed an individual health insurance mandate before he was against it. Arizonans never know which John McCain is going to show up.
UPDATE: Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) explained today that his "Empowering States to be Innovative" amendment would, quite literally, give states the right to set up their own health care system — with or without an individual mandate or, for that matter, with or without a public option — provided that, as Wyden puts it, "they can meet the coverage requirements of the bill." Wyden: Health Care Lawsuits Moot, States Can Opt Out Of Mandate
The provision actually was taken directly from Wyden's Healthy Americans Act — the far-more innovative health care reform legislation he authored with Republican co-sponsors. States that found the mandate objectionable could simply create and insert a new system in its place. All it would require is applying for a waiver from the Department of Health and Human Services, which has a 180-day window to confirm or deny such a waiver.
The current Republican leadership of Arizona has demonstrated that it is entirely incapable of establishing a state health care system because it simply will not enact taxes to pay for it.
Discover more from Blog for Arizona
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.