States File Lawsuits Challenging Obamacare

The attorneys general of 14 states are suing the federal government over the constitutionality of Obamacare.

From the Christian Science Monitor:

Democratic leaders have downplayed any potential legal problems with the healthcare reform package. Many legal analysts agree with them. Others suggest the issue is open and could produce a landmark decision if the high court decides to take it up.

In addition to Florida, participating plaintiffs in the lawsuit include attorneys general from South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Louisiana, Alabama, Michigan, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Washington State, Idaho, and South Dakota. The suing attorneys general are Republicans except James “Buddy” Caldwell of Louisiana, who is a Democrat.

The Florida-filed lawsuit identifies two victims. It says the new law infringes the liberty of individual state residents to choose for themselves whether to have health insurance. It also says the states themselves are victims of a federal power grab by leaders in Washington.

Obamacare and Public Health

George Avery, an assistant professor of public health at Purdue University, writes on the conflation of health care reform and the improvement of public health, and argues that Obamacare will actually prove detrimental to public health in general.

In fact, federal “reform” often hurts the public health system. Both public health and health care experts have criticized Medicare and Medicaid, enacted by Congress in 1965, for changing the focus of health care practitioners from prevention to treatment. Infectious disease mortality rates rose 22 percent in the 1980s (even after discounting for AIDS deaths), despite rising public and private spending on health insurance and medical care. In 1988, the Institute of Medicine warned of a deteriorating public health system. Inadequate vaccine supplies, such as the recent shortages of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine or influenza vaccines, are at least in part the result of federal attempts to control the production and distribution of the vaccines.

Read the whole thing here. Hat tip to Michael Cannon at the Cato Institute.

The Legal Battle Against Obamacare

The argument against the constitutionality of the individual mandates in obamacare have come to a head, as some state governments are actually proposing and passing exemption legislation and lawsuits against Obamacare, should it pass.

Subsidizing the States

Tad DeHaven at the Cato Institute responds to a comment about the popularity of federal funding for state programs with many pretty charts demonstrating the dramatic increasing in federal subsidies of state programs.

Power to the States

Phillip Damon of the Troubled Patriot features an essay on American Thinker about the importance of a vertical separation of powers in American government. The Constitution was written to limit the power of the federal government to only those powers ennumerated in the Constitution, with all other powers reserved to the states. Progressivism has fought long and hard against this concept, with the result of a massively expanded government that has no authority from the Constitution.

Fiscal Federalism

Ted DeHaven at the Cato Institute highlights an effort by Utah legislators to disentangle federal funding from state-run programs. An editorial in the Washington Post written by the President of the Utah Senate and the Speaker of the Utah House delineates this plan to shift management and funding of state-run programs exclusively to the State of Utah.

Kansas Senate Tells Feds to GTFO

From the AP in Topeka:

Kansas senators have sent the House a resolution urging the federal government to respect the state’s sovereignty.

The nonbinding measure cleared the Senate on Thursday on a vote of 33-7.

The resolution seeks to remind Congress and President Barack Obama to respect the state’s rights under the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

I think it’s fantastic that this sentiment was stated explicitly to the federal government, and that it had so much support in the Kansas Senate. I doubt it will do much good, though. Nobody cares about the 10th Amendment anymore.

The Right to Seceed

Eugene Volkh conducts a legal analysis of the assertion that Appomatox Courthouse permanently settled the issue of secession.

[A judgment on secession] must be a judgment based on how we see the world today, not based on what happened 144 years ago. A matter is “settled” by political decision only so long as the political decision commands the adherence of the polity. If in 2065 Alaska, California,