Bill McCollum Takes Aim at Obamacare in Latest Round of Legal Challenge

In the latest round of their constitutional challenge to new federal health-care laws backed by President Barack Obama, the plaintiffs from 20 states and the National Federation of Independent Business, led by Attorney General Bill McCollum, filed a reply in support of their motion for summary judgment against the U.S. Department of Justice and other defendants. McCollum and his allies are taking aim at the individual mandate required by the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Plaintiffs have meticulously demonstrated that the commerce power only reaches activity References to activity and conduct permeate judicial decisions applying that power, which never has been used to compel inactive persons to enter into commerce, argued McCollum and the other plaintiffs.Despite repeated opportunities to do so, defendants have been unable to cite a single pre-ACA decision applying the commerce power to inactive persons or compelling anyone to engage in commerce against his or her will.

McCollum and his allies also took aim at the expenses required by the new law.

Plaintiffs rightly have noted that the burden of providing services puts the states in a terrible dilemma: either somehow find the additional monies to induce adequate numbers of providers to participate in Medicaid on behalf of the ACA-expanded pool of eligible recipients, or face potentially huge liabilities and the possible loss of all federal funding for failing to meet the ACAs requirements, argued McCollum and the plaintiffs. There is no room for reasonable disagreement.

Incoming Attorney General Pam Bondi is planning to continue the challenge when she takes over from McCollum in January.