House GOP Files Suit Against Obamacare Implementation
Republicans in Congress, led by Speaker John Boehner, have been promising to sue President Obama over implementation of the Affordable Care Act for months, and now they've officially done it.
As expected, the suit takes aim at the administration's multiple delays of the health care law's employer mandate, which, as I've written before, is almost certainly illegal.
It also challenges the $175 billion in expected spending on cost-sharing under the law—federal funds paid to insurers to offset some out of pocket health care costs for lower income individuals. The suit argues that no funds were appropriated for cost-sharing expenses, and that the payments being made by the administration are therefore illegal.
This part of the challenge wasn't revealed until today, and there's been very little discussion of it up to now.
Republicans had some trouble finding an attorney to take the case; the first two lawyers hired by Boehner quit the case before the challenge was filed. Earlier this week, however, Boehner announced that he had hired George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley, a longtime critic of expansive executive power, to handle the case.
You can view the complete complaint below.