Small-business association to challenge new health care law in court
The National Federation of Independent Business said Friday that it would challenge in court the constitutionality of the nation’s new health insurance reform law.</p><p>“Small-business owners everywhere are rightfully concerned that the unconstitutional new mandates, countless rules and new taxes in the health care law will devastate their business and their ability to create jobs,” said federation president Dan Danner.</p><p>The federation, which says it represents 350,000 members, will join the attorneys general and governors from 20 states in a lawsuit challenging the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.</p><p>Legal scholars say it would be difficult, but not impossible, to win a constitutional challenge against the law. The opponents are attacking the constitutionality of requiring Americans by 2014 to have health insurance through an employer, a government program or individual purchase.</p><p> Federation lawyers decided to channel its members’ opposition into the “national presence” afforded by the states’ lawsuit.</p><p>Lawyers for the Obama administration argue that health insurance coverage requirements are constitutional and rest in the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce.</p><p>Although opponents contend that the new law is an attack on personal freedom, proponents counter that the decision to not have health insurance is not merely a personal choice because someone else must pay for the care that the uninsured receive when they get sick or injured.</p><p>“Individual decisions to forgo insurance coverage, in the aggregate, substantially affect interstate commerce by shifting costs to health care providers and the public,” the Justice Department said in legal papers filed this week.</p><p>The constitutional challenge is as much a political statement as a legal one. Opponents are mostly Republicans who are against the concept of universal coverage. The lawsuit is expected to figure prominently in political campaigns leading up to the November elections.
