13 attorneys general sue to void healthcare law, moments after Obama signs it
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Moments after President Obama signed the healthcare insurance overhaul Tuesday, attorneys general from 13 states filed suit, challenging the law on constitutional grounds.
At the heart of the suit is whether Congress has the legal authority to mandate the purchase of healthcare insurance, Nebraska Atty. Gen. Jon Bruning said in an interview televised on MSNBC.
“Ultimately, this is a constitutional question. This is a commerce-clause question,” Bruning said. “For years, Congress’ power has continued to grow and grow and grow, but this is a quantum leap.’
Bruning agreed that the Constitution gave Congress the ability to regulate interstate commerce. He argued that the mandate to buy insurance was an expansion of how courts had usually seen the power of Congress.
The White House on Monday and other Democrats in the last week have argued that the federal government did have the ability to mandate that all individuals buy health insurance, key to the overhaul bill signed Tuesday by President Obama.
But in the suit, filed in Florida, the states disagreed.
“The issue here is that Congress has gone beyond the powers granted in the Constitution,” Bruning said.
“If they can force you to buy insurance, they can force us all to buy electric cars, which is a noble goal,” he said, “but is not necessarily where we want America to go.”
In addition to Nebraska, the other states in the suit are Florida, South Carolina, Texas, Michigan, Utah, Pennsylvania, Alabama, South Dakota, Louisiana, Idaho, Washington and Colorado.
‘My advice from counsel is that we’ll win these lawsuits,’ White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Monday.
-- Michael Muskal
