AG McCollum to Fox: Mandate is ‘middle pole’ in Obamacare tent
Tuesday, December 14, 2010 at 1:00PM Florida attorney general Bill McCollum told Fox News on Tuesday the individual mandate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is like the “pole in the middle of the tent.” If the mandate falls, the whole tent collapses. McCollum said that’s because “there’s no other funding mechanism.”
McCollum was one of the first to point out the vulnerability of the PPACA (commonly called ObamaCare) because of the lack of a severability clause in the bill.
Attorney Karen Harned explains the severability issue in an article at Big Government. Harned wrote, “Recognizing that the Individual Mandate may well be struck down as unconstitutional, Obamacare’s defenders insist that even if the mandate falls, the rest of the law should remain intact. But Congress intentionally decided not to include a severability clause in the healthcare reform law. A severability clause provides that the balance of a law will remain valid if a particular provision is ruled unconstitutional. Congress stripped the severability clause from earlier drafts of the healthcare reform bill because its supporters knew the constitutionality of the individual mandate was suspect. They took a calculated risk that the courts would not want to overturn such a politically charged piece of legislation. “
McCollum is sticking to his argument Congress doesn’t have the power to mandate that Americans buy insurance or pay a penalty. He also told Fox News that Florida “would be crippled” by having to add more people to Medicaid. He said 27 percent of the state’s budget already goes to Medicaid and ObamaCare would add billions more in costs the state would bear because 2 million more enrollees could join the program, even those who already have insurance through employers.
The federal government would pick up some costs of those additional enrollees initially, but ultimately, said McCollum, “The state would pick up the entire tab.”
The mandates are “coerced upon us” by the federal government said McCollum who believes that has implications for states’ rights relevant to the Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution.
As of Tuesday, 222 companies had applied for and received waivers to the annual limits set by the legislation. A number of those companies are labor unions. The companies are listed on the US Dept. of Health and Human Services website.
On Monday Judge Henry Hudson of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia struck down the mandate in the suit brought by Virginia attorney general Kenneth Cuccinelli. The Heritage Foundation blog Morning Bell said, “Judge Roger Vinson of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida is expected to rule on an even larger challenge to Obamacare brought by 16 state attorneys general, four governors, two private citizens, and the National Federation of Independent Business.”
Vinson will hear arguments from states and parties united in the larger challenge on Dec. 16. Harned wrote, “They will ask U.S. District Court Judge Roger Vinson to rule that the heart of the law – and ‘individual mandate’ that obligates private citizens to obtain health insurance whether they want it or not – is unconstitutional. NFIB and the states will accordingly ask that Judge Vinson to strike down Obamacare in its entirety.”
Harned said she expected a decision from Vinson in early 2011.
McCollum told Fox News, “At the end of the day, it will go to the Supreme Court.”
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(Filed by Kay B. Day/Dec. 14, 2010)