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The Claremont Institute's Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence (CCJ) filed an important brief arguing that the provisions of Obamacare forcing the States to greatly expand their Medicaid coverage were unconstitutional.The CCJ was joined by the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Cato Institute, Congressman Denny Rehberg of Montana (current Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services), and Kansas Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer who is also a practicing physician and therefore sees both sides of the unconstitutional burden imposed on the States. In the brief, we argue that the federal government cannot coerce the States to expand their Medicaid programs by threatening to cut off nearly $1/4 trillion in existing funding. We further contend that the expanded Medicaid program is unconstitutional because it exceeds Congress's power to spend only for matters that were of national, not local welfare. The Supreme Court agreed to hear four different aspects of the Obamacare litigation over three days in March, and we have been urging it to take up the Spending Clause issues for several years, now, out of recognition that none of the rest of the limits on federal power contained in the Constitution would be effective if the Spending Power's limits are not also enforced. A copy of the brief is available here.
A copy of our earlier brief, in which we urged the Court to consider the Spending Clause issue, is available here.
