House GOP sues U.S. over health care law
U.S. House Republicans sued President Barack Obama’s administration over implementation of the 2010 health care law, saying the president exceeded his authority by delaying part of the program.
Republicans’ complaint filed against the secretaries of health and human services and the Treasury in Washington federal court states the president unlawfully postponed one of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s central requirements — that most employers provide insurance to workers — without a vote of Congress. The House also claimed the administration is improperly making payments to insurance companies.
“Time after time, the president has chosen to ignore the will of the American people and rewrite federal law on his own,” Republican House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement. “If this president can get away with making his own laws, future presidents will have the ability to as well.”
Obama in July dismissed plans for the lawsuit as a “political stunt.”
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Eric Schultz, the White House deputy press secretary, called Boehner’s lawsuit “unfortunate.”
“At a time where we — I think the American people want Washington focused on jobs and the economy, the House Republicans choose to sue us, sue the president for doing his job — and using taxpayer resources at the same time — for a lawsuit that their own congressional research service could not identify any merit for,” Schultz said.
House Republicans filed the lawsuit a day after Obama, in a nationally televised speech, announced action to ease immigration restrictions and allow some illegal aliens to remain in the U.S.
Republican leaders of Congress said the executive action was beyond the power of the president, and some state officials have threatened to sue.
Obamacare, intended to provide coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans, has been attacked by Republicans since it was passed on a party-line vote in 2010.
The Supreme Court upheld much of Obamacare by a single vote in 2012. Earlier this month, the court agreed to hear a challenge to tax credits that have helped more than 4 million people afford health insurance. A decision will come by June.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called the lawsuit “meritless” and an attempt “to achieve what Republicans have been unable to achieve through the political process.”
Pelosi also complained that Republicans found “a TV lawyer” who’ll cost taxpayers too much — $500 hourly, according to the contract. The lead attorney, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, has done legal commentary on television networks.
Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services declined to immediately comment on the lawsuit. Treasury Department spokesman Erin Donar referred requests for comment to the White House.
The lawsuit challenges Obama’s delay in the so-called employer insurance mandate. Companies with 50 or more workers must provide affordable insurance or pay a fine of as much as $3,000 per employee.
Obama said in 2013 that employers wouldn’t have to comply with the requirement until 2015. This year, Obama further delayed the rule until 2016 for companies with fewer than 100 workers. Larger companies must cover 70 percent of their workforce starting in 2015.
The health care law allows the administration to set the starting date for an information reporting rule needed to enforce the mandate, and businesses said they weren’t prepared for the paperwork.
The lawsuit also claims the administration is using funds from a Treasury Department account, authorized for other purposes, to pay insurance companies as part of a cost-sharing program.
The U.S. is expected to pay insurers about $178 billion through 2024 for the subsidies, which reduce copayments, coinsurance and other cost-sharing required for low-income people in the plans.
Congress has never appropriated funds for that program, according to the complaint.
“If this lawsuit were successful on this cost-sharing point, no low-income Americans would lose their health care because insurance companies would still be required to provide coverage,” according to Boehner’s statement.
The Constitution doesn’t allow the president to enact or amend laws without a vote of Congress, and it bans the use of public funds that haven’t been appropriated by Congress, said the lawsuit filed by Turley.
“Not only is there no license for the administration to ‘go it alone’ in our system, but such unilateral action is directly barred” by the Constitution, Turley wrote in the complaint.
House Republicans have voted more than 50 times to repeal or delay all or part of the health care law. The lawsuit allows Boehner to escalate his objections to Obama’s actions without giving in to some Tea Party-backed members of his party who want the House to consider impeaching Obama. Boehner has ruled out such a move.
In June, Boehner had said the House would sue Obama over what he called a pattern of ignoring parts of federal laws the president didn’t like. The speaker cited health care, energy, foreign policy and education waivers that he said were “straining the boundaries” of Obama’s constitutional oath.
A month later the speaker said the lawsuit would focus on the delay in implementing the employer health-insurance mandate. Friday’s complaint added another element: the claim regarding misuse of funds for the cost-sharing program.
The case is U.S. House of Representatives v. Burwell, 14cv-01967, U.S. District Court District of Columbia (Washington) and was assigned to U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer, a 2003 appointee of President George W. Bush.
University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias said it would be difficult for the House to prove its case or even get the courts to hear it because of their traditional reluctance to intervene in political disputes between Congress and the president.
Timothy Lewis, a former federal appeals court judge nominated by President George H.W. Bush, said caseloads and potential appeals make it doubtful the case would be finished during Obama’s final 26 months in office. Information for this article was contributed by Sophia Pearson, Kathleen Miller, Derek Wallbank and Alex Wayne of Bloomberg News; by Alan Fram, David Espo, Donna Cassata and Julie Pace of The Associated Press; and by Ashley Parker and Robert Pear of