24 states, one governor and one attorney general have signed the Florida briefs calling for overturning the ACA, including the Medicaid expansions – claiming that everything falls like a house of cards (this is the “severability” issue). The key argument on Medicaid is “coercion,” whether states are so dependent on Medicaid that it is an offer they cannot refuse. (The federal government as a mafia don).
Having so many states sign the briefs is impressive, but lost in the discussion is the simple fact that Obama couldn’t have passed the ACA without red state votes in Congress. From the Petitioners’ congressional delegations, 21 US Senators and 88 Representatives voted for the law (data here: PPACA Votes by Petitioners). From the Health Law & Policy Scholars’ amicus brief to be filed on Friday (find it Monday at ACA Litigation Blog):
Quite simply, the Act could not have passed without the support in 2010 from the Petitioners’ duly elected congressional delegations. As is often the case, the political landscape changed after the mid-term elections in November 2010, but that change should alert this Court to the dangerous implications of a State’s subsequent political leadership claiming that the former leadership had been coerced. Shifting political winds do not imply coercion.
KO
