GOP Lawsuit Against Obamacare Gets Green Light

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Townhall:

On Wednesday, Federal District Judge Rosemary Collyer gave House Republicans hope that their fight against Obamacare is not over. Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has been pursuing a lawsuit against the president’s health care legislation, one that would hold his administration accountable for spending “billions of unappropriated dollars” that were never approved by Congress. The judge allowed this claim to go forward, offering the following explanation:

 

“The only issue before the Court is whether the House can sue the Secretaries; the merits of this lawsuit await another day. Although no precedent dictates the outcome, the case implicates the constitutionality of another Branch’s actions and thus merits an ‘especially rigorous’ standing analysis. Ariz. State Legislature v. Ariz. Indep. Redistricting Comm’n, 135 S. Ct. 2652, 2665 n. 12 (2015). The House sues, as an institutional plaintiff, to preserve its power of the purse and to maintain constitutional equilibrium between the Executive and the Legislature. If its non-appropriation claims have merit, which the Secretaries deny, the House has been injured in a concrete and particular way that is traceable to the Secretaries and remediable in court. The Court concludes that the House has standing to pursue those constitutional claims,” Collyer wrote.

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Why The GOP's Lawsuit Could Sink ObamaCare

 

The House GOP's ObamaCare lawsuit looks like the most serious threat yet to a law that has survived two trips to the Supreme Court mostly intact.

 

Just 10 weeks ago, President Obama cheered that his signature legislation was "here to stay" after six justices ruled that the federally run Healthcare.gov could issue premium subsidies.

 

Yet this latest suit has the potential to undermine ObamaCare's already-shaky foundation.

 

U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer ruled Wednesday that the House has standing to suethe Department of Health and Human Services for spending billions that Republicans say was never appropriated to reduce out-of-pocket expenses of low-income insurance customers.

 

$136 Billion Is At Stake

 

At stake is $136 billion, or 19%, of the $735 billion in cost-sharing subsidies that the Congressional Budget Office expects will be spent over the coming decade.

 

Here's an example of how these cost-sharing subsidies work: The cheapest silver plan in Miami carries a $10,000 deductible for a married couple. But with the extra cost-sharing subsidies — paid directly to insurers like premium subsidies — couples earning up to $23,595 who buy this same plan will have just a $1,000 deductible.

 

The trouble for the Obama administration in this case, unlike the last one, is that Republicans have plenty of evidence to back their view of how ObamaCare is supposed to work.

 

http://news.investors.com/091015-770364-house-challenges-obamacare-cost-sharing-subsidies.htm