Attorney General joins federal lawsuit challenging health care mandate

[esaabye]

http://www.coloradoattorneygeneral.g...care_mandate_0

03/22/2010
DENVER — Colorado Attorney General John Suthers announced today he will join with nearly a dozen other state attorneys general to challenge the constitutionality of the individual health care mandate in the recently enacted Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
“The United State Constitution enshrines a form of limited government to protect the rights of the states under a system of federalism and to protect the individual freedom of American citizens. The individual mandate to purchase insurance or suffer economic sanction violates constitutional principles and lacks constitutional authority,” Suthers said. “The Constitution gives Congress the enumerated powers to regulate those engaged in interstate commerce. It does not give the Congress the power to compel a citizen, who would otherwise choose to be inactive in the marketplace, to purchase a product or service and thereby become subject to congressional regulation. Such an expansion of the current understanding of the Commerce Clause would leave no private sphere of individual commercial decision making beyond the reach of the federal government. It would render the 10th Amendment meaningless.”
The lawsuit also will challenge the constitutionality of the penalties included in the legislation for individuals that decide to forgo purchasing health insurance. Although government can tax commercial activity, this law would constitute a tax on an individual’s commercial inactivity and not on the states’ populations or another concrete metric. Such a tax would not be apportioned between the states, as required under the Commerce Clause. The courts, too, have established that Congress cannot exercise its tax powers to “coerce’ individuals or businesses.
The Office of the Attorney General is vested with the inherent authority to act and enter lawsuits concerning the general welfare of the state, People of the State of Colorado, ex rel Salazar v. Davidson, 79 P. 3d 1221, 1231 (2003).

[Bailey Guns]

Good for him.

Remember in November.

[pickenup]

Well, I'll be.

[sniper7]

excellent, at least we have someone left here who is sane. these other morons need to be shipped to afghanistan.

[Zundfolge]

I think the dems set quite the trap with the insurance mandate.

They KNEW it would get stripped out of the final law by the court. But the requirement that insurance companies cover folk with pre-existing conditions will remain.

Thus the health insurance industry will collapse even sooner ... and when it does the fed.gov will just be forced to institute a single payer system. Then BAM! Socialized Medicine in America.

[ronaldrwl]

3 faces of evil

[Irving]

I wasn't aware that we had such a racist attorney general.

[claimbuster]

Good for him.

Remember in November.

AMEN!

[claimbuster]

excellent, at least we have someone left here who is sane. these other morons need to be shipped to afghanistan.

We have someone here that has cojones! We need to remember who our friends are.

[theGinsue]

I wasn't aware that we had such a racist attorney general.

I'm not sure what you mean be saying he's racist.

I appreciate that he has joined CO in the suit against the .fed in this law, but I wonder what the courts will decide....."shut up and color"?

I don't expect that there is any actual teeth in this suit. Now, if CO publiclly declared "NOT IN THIS STATE" as at least one other state has, I'd be a bit more optimistic.