If I didn't see it with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it:
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who joined a multistate lawsuit challenging the new federal health care law this week, is taking heat from Democrats who say he backed a plan that required noncustodial parents to provide medical coverage for their children.Uh...what? Has Greg Abbot read the 14th Amendment lately?
But Abbott, a Republican, said Wednesday that there's a distinction between the two programs: Texas is not required by the federal government to participate in the child support program, but Texas residents would be required to buy insurance under the newly enacted federal health care overhaul.
"Consistent with the 10th Amendment, the authority is reserved for the states to require parents who have children in the child support system to provide insurance for those kids," Abbott said.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.If this argument represents the argument about the Constitutionality of HCR, then the suit has already failed.
Oh, and that claim by Abbott that the state alone can mandate health insurance in the Family Code (as a matter of child support)? That's to comply with a Federal law so the state can receive federal funds. Which doesn't violate the 10th Amendment. Somehow.
I'm so glad state funds are being spent so wisely on lawsuits of such obvious merit.....
Louisiana is broke. Higher education and health an hospitals have been cut drastically and will be cut further. Our state has no money to pursue useless lawsuits.
ReplyDeleteOn Countdown, Lawrence O'Donnell said that the fine imposed on those who don't purchase health insurance is really a tax. Obama doesn't want to call it that, but that's what it is. I believe O'Donnell said that it would be collected by the IRS.
The more I think about these "lawsuits," the more I think they are "frivolous" within the meaning of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (Rule 12, IIRC; but it's been too long).
ReplyDeleteThere are so many "technical" reasons why these suits are bogus, beginning with the question of whether the AG's have standing to bring them, and going on to the question of harm. As Sheila Jackson Lee has pointed out to the AG Abbott, they can't have even read this law yet to know what's in it.
This is the very definition of using the courts for non-judicial purposes, but I don't expect the courts to find that these suits are frivolous. They should, though.
Oh, and Texas doesn't have money to throw around, either. Word is sales tax receipts are down, and not going up anytime soon.
ReplyDelete