Republicans sue White House over Obamacare
The Republican-led House of Representatives has filed a lawsuit against the Obama Administration for what it believes are illegal policies regarding the implementation of President Obama's signature legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act.
The New York Times reports that the defendants in the lawsuit are the secretaries of Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Treasury. The lawsuit hinges on two different complaints. The first is that Obama violated US law by delaying the employer mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act. That portion of the law mandated that employers with 50 or more employees must provide health insurance, or pay fines.
Obama pushed back that law's coming into effect twice, first in 2013, and then in early 2014. The first delay was until 2015, and that delay was then changed until 2016. The second portion of the lawsuit contends that because the Affordable Care Act pays insurance companies $175 billion over ten years, and those funds were not appropriated by Congress, such a policy is unlawful, according to the Times. This is because the power of the purse for the US government resides with the Congress. Those payments are not exactly payments to insurance firms in the sense that the government is just giving money to insurance companies. Rather, they are subsidies for low income workers so that they are able to afford health care policies. The Times notes that House Republicans had a difficult time finding a law firm that would take the case. Two possible firms backed out of the deal, but House Speaker John Boehner was able to hire a law professor from George Washington University to take the case.
