JEFFERSONVILLE —
Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller was in Southern Indiana on Thursday to discuss why he has joined a lawsuit challenging the recently signed health care reform bill.
“The reason I’ve decided to join [the suit] ... I’d announced even before the bill was passed that it had constitutional questions,” Zoeller said. “That really in the best interest of everybody — whether you support the legislation or whether you are worried about what it does — regardless, I think everybody needs some resolution to the constitutional questions that are raised.”
The seed of the challenge, at least for Indiana, dates back to January when Zoeller prepared a 55-page report on legal issues at the behest of Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind. The crux of the argument is the imposition of mandating health care coverage.
“We raised both [of] the questions about the constitutional reach of the federal government,” Zoeller, a Southern Indiana native, said. “Both in terms of an individual mandate, which now would require every citizen of the United States to purchase, for the first time ... a private product.”
The individual mandate, according to Zoeller, is in violation of the United States Commerce Clause, which is Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution.
PURCHASE PLAN
The Commerce Clause allows the federal government “to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states” and is often a legal argument brought to the forefront when a struggle is mentioned between federal and state power.
“It is true that over the years, the federal government has more and more authority breathed into their role under the commerce clause,” he said.
While constitutionality questions have been raised over the mandated purchase of health care, the original concept of a public-option plan would have been a government-run program and avoided this type of legal challenge.
“It’s unlike Medicaid, which is a federal program that everybody is required to be a part of,” Zoeller said of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. “But this would really require people to go out an purchase something, which is unprecedented.”
No Supreme Court decision has been made on whether or not the federal government can mandate that individuals buy the health insurance.
“Here there is no activity ... you’re actually regulating inactivity,” Zoeller said. “Just the mere fact that you live in a state is now going to be considered under the federal role the activity that is part of the [commerce]. I don’t think the federal government has the authority to regulate, really, just the fact that you are alive.”
INITIAL IMPACT
For the time being, the impact for Hoosiers relying on Medicare, Medicaid or the new health care legislation is expected to be minimal. It is believed that the hold placed on the Healthy Indiana Program will continue and Medicare and Medicaid provisions will move forward as expected, for now.
“For the most part, you won’t see a lot of changes,” Zoeller said.
No injunction was filed to halt the early stages of the health care bill from going into effect.
“Frankly, most of the bill will not take effect until 2014.”
In the meantime, Indiana and the 13 states it joined in the lawsuit will wait for the case to reach the Supreme Court, and it is believed that more states will join.
Zoeller did not offer which states will likely be added to the suit.
PLAYING POLITICS
Another issue that is fueling the suit that Indiana will join is purely political.
No Republicans voted for the passage of the health care legislation in either the House of Representatives or the Senate and 13 of the 14 attorneys general involved in the suit are Republicans, including Zoeller.
“The appearance that the attorneys general are bringing a claim against the new bill really is seen as political, but in fact I think it’s a healthy part of the process,” Zoeller said. “You still have to see whether the federal government has this authority for the individual mandate and the new requirements that mandate obligations by the state.”
But Zoeller insists that the attorneys involved are largely apolitical.
“People should not be seeing the challenge by the attorneys general as saying we are against health care reform,” Zoeller said. “It really goes to the heart of it, which is the question of federal authority versus state authority and individual rights.”
The other states that have entered in the suit are: South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Michigan, Utah, Pennsylvania, Alabama, South Dakota, Idaho, Washington, Colorado, Florida and Louisiana.
Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, a Republican running for governor, filed the initial suit in Florida’s U.S. District Court.
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