Florida leads multi-state challenge to ObamaCare, petitions SCOTUS to review decision

Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks during a cabinet meeting. (Photo from state of Florida)Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a statement on Wednesday about the 26-state challenge to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act commonly called ObamaCare.

Bondi said Florida and the other 25 states filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari asking the US Supreme Court to review the decision of the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Bondi said ObamaCare is “an affront on Americans’ individual liberty.” She also said, “Our country urgently needs a final ruling from the US Supreme Court.”

The urgency is real. States and individual employers are scrambling to make sense of a law Democrats didn’t even read before passing.

The federal government has already spent or committed $700 million in taxpayer funds for contractors and consultants who allegedly will make sense of the bill.

President Barack Obama already signed a repeal for one provision of the healthcare bill, the 1099 requirement. Ironically this caused the bill to come up short on the revenue ObamaCare is supposed to produce—Democrats counted on $17 billion from that provision which was basically a tax.

Bondi said that although the 11^th Circuit Court agreed that the individual mandate in ObamaCare violates the Constitution, the states asked SCOTUS to review three other aspects of the legislation:

(1) Whether the entire Act must fail because its centerpiece - the mandate that every person purchase insurance - is unconstitutional.

(2) Whether the federal government can force the States to administer and fund a substantial expansion of Medicaid or risk all of their Medicaid funding.

(3) Whether the federal government can require States to give state employees a federally mandated level of health insurance coverage.

Congress justified the mandate by saying that cost shifting occurs when uninsured individuals shift their costs onto the insured. This is an argument that implodes, however. ObamaCare simply shifts more costs onto the insured by offering federal subsidies to the uninsured. Those subsidies will be paid by the taxpayer.

Cost shifting occurs anytime we provide healthcare for a decision construed as a choice, such as using abortion as a means of birth control, abusing drugs or alcohol and engaging in risky sexual activity. Currently a sizable cost of healthcare for illegal workers is shifted onto American communities—the employer does get cheap labor but taxpayers pick up the tab if that employee presents at an emergency room and asks for treatment.

Bondi said the case is “paramount in our history,” and she is right when she said it will “define the boundaries of Congress’ power as set forth in our Constitution.”

Those boundaries on Congress’ power are clearcut in prohibiting mandates on the federal level when it comes to any personal choice on healthcare. The fact we have judges who lack the intellect to understand those limitations should be an issue of concern to all Americans.

~Read archived articles about ObamaCare at The US Report

(Commentary by Kay B. Day/Sept. 29, 2011)

This is the time of year when blogs try to raise money to help them stay afloat, and The US Report is no different from others. If you’d like to make a small donation, please use the PayPal link in the right corner. The US Report is an indie blog; we receive no donations from the government, political parties or candidates.