Feb 15 2012
In a brief filed Monday, 43 Senate Republicans said that if the Supreme Court allows the mandate to buy health insurance in the Democrats' health law to stand, then Congress could require Americans to buy almost anything.
The Hill: Senate Republicans Press Supreme Court To Strike Health Care Mandate
Forty-three Senate Republicans filed a brief Monday urging the Supreme Court to strike the individual mandate in President Obama's health care law. The brief echoes the arguments made by the 26 states that filed the legal challenge. If Congress can require people to buy health insurance, the brief argues, it could mandate almost any purchase. Critics of the mandate say it takes the unprecedented and unconstitutional step of requiring economic activity, rather than regulating it (Baker, 2/13).
CQ HealthBeat: GOP Senators File Brief In Health Care Lawsuit
Republican senators on Monday filed a brief with U.S. Supreme Court saying that "Congress acted without constitutional authority" when it approved the requirement in the health care law that all Americans must have health insurance. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and others said that the individual mandate included in the law has damaged the legitimacy of Congress as an institution and triggered conflicts between the states and the federal government (Norman, 2/13).
 This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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