crossfire (1)

 
 

            It’s not been a good week for Obamacare, by any measure:  

A) Today the U.S. House of Representatives voted 245-189 to repeal the law (a far larger margin then originally passed it). The fact that only three Democrats voted to repeal the law shows the tremendous sway that Nancy Pelosi still holds B) Two Rasmussen Reports surveys meanwhile showed that 75% of American voters want changes to Obamacare; and
 
C) 56% of voters actually want it repealed, while
 
D) six more states (Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Ohio, Wisconsin and Wyoming) joined a suit claiming the law is unconstitutional. This brings to twenty-sex, the number of states involved in the lawsuit originally begun by Florida. The other nineteen states that are suing are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Washington.            

            All six of the new states joining the law suits have Republican Attorney Generals, but the action in the House was, at least, somewhat bi-partisan as three Democrats joined the unanimous Republican voting ranks against Pelosi and the health care “reform” bill. With the new additions, over half the country’s states are now opposing the law.  "It sends a strong message that more than half of the states consider the health care law unconstitutional and are willing to fight it in court," Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.

The states claim the health care law is unconstitutional and violates people's rights by forcing them to buy health insurance by 2014 or face penalties. Government attorneys have said the states do not have standing to challenge the law and want the case dismissed.

Lawsuits have been filed elsewhere. A federal judge in Virginia ruled in December that the insurance-purchase mandate provision was unconstitutional, although two other federal judges have upheld the requirement.   It’s widely believed the U.S. Supreme Court will ultimately have to resolve the issue.

Meanwhile, at the White House, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed attaching any importance to the vote repealing the law, saying the Republican effort was “not a serious legislative” push. Democrats have a majority in the Senate and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said his party would block repeal in that chamber; and will not allow the bill to even reach the Senate floor if he has his way.

In the Florida case, the states also argue the federal government is violating the Constitution by forcing a mandate on the states without providing money to pay for it. They say the new law gives the state's the impossible choice of accepting the new costs or forfeiting federal Medicaid funding.  By 2024 at the latest, the new Obamacare requirements for the state side of Medicaid are potentially expected to bankrupt almost all the fifty states. As a side note: Unfunded liabilities of $112 TRillion in Social Security, Medicare, and the federal side of Medicaid amount to more than double the gross national product of the entire world. These three entitlement programs and the new Obamacare entitlement appear nationally and for the states to be ticking time bombs . . . .

Florida U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson is expected to rule later this month whether he will grant a summary judgment in favor of the states or the Obama administration without a trial. Former Florida Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum filed the lawsuit within seconds after President Barack Obama signed the 10-year, $938 billion health care bill into law in March. He chose a court in Pensacola, one of Florida's most conservative cities.  The nation's most influential small business lobby, the National Federation of Independent Business, also joined the suit saying that the law’s costs and paperwork would make small business ownership a losing proposition. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has made similar assessments about Obamacare. A recent analysis showed that where before there stood only the patient and his/her doctor . . . 1,968 bureaucrats have now entered the relationship courtesy of Obamacare.

 

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

   
Read more…