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From: in2dadark on 28 Mar 2010 23:10
States' Leaders Clash Over Healthcare Lawsuits

(Reuters) - New battles are erupting over recently passed U.S.
healthcare reforms, this time within the states, where leaders from
both parties are clashing on whether to sue the U.S. government.

Only hours after President Barack Obama signed the healthcare plan
into law this week, more than a dozen Republican attorneys general of
U.S. states -- and one Democrat -- filed lawsuits saying it violated
state and individual rights. Others began investigating possible
lawsuits.

The reforms, which mandate that each citizen has health insurance,
were pushed through by Democrats in the U.S. Congress after months of
rancorous partisan fighting.

Wisconsin's Democratic Governor Jim Doyle in a letter on Thursday
rebuked the attorney general of his state, J. B. Van Hollen, for
threatening to sue, calling a suit "a frivolous and political attempt
to thwart the actions of Congress and the law of the country."

Wisconsin requires the state's governor or legislature to approve
legal actions.

In a request for approval Van Hollen sent on Thursday, he said that
the healthcare plan "upsets the proper balance of power between the
federal government and the states."

While some legal scholars think the suits will reach the Supreme
Court, many agree that the supremacy clause of the Constitution, which
puts the powers of the U.S. government above those of the states, will
trump the states' arguments.

Republican Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons has pressed his state's
Democrat attorney general, Catherine Cortez Masto, for an answer by
Monday on whether she will join a multi-state lawsuit.

"I made it clear in late December of last year that if the healthcare
bill passed, I would ask you to challenge its constitutionality,"
Gibbons said in a scolding letter sent on Thursday. "Any reasonable
person experiencing such inaction from a private law firm would have
fired that law firm already."

A PARTISAN BATTLEFIELD

In Washington state, Governor Christine Gregoire, a Democrat, and
Attorney General Rob McKenna, a Republican, have squared off over his
joining the multi-state challenge.

Gregoire, the state's attorney general before McKenna, is so committed
to opposing the lawsuit that she has threatened to file a legal brief
in support of the healthcare law.

McKenna supports the suit and expects more states to join it.

"I have personally spoken to a governor in another state who has asked
me to brief his state's attorney general," he told Reuters on Friday.

States are worried about the expansion of Medicaid, the joint state-
federal program for the poor, without federal assistance, as "it's
likely given past experience that Congress will cut the federal
match."

Arizona House Rep. Kirk Adams said he expects Governor Jan Brewer, a
Republican, to call a special session of the state's legislature for
next to seek approval from lawmakers to authorize her to sue the
government because the state's Democrat attorney general will not.

Arizona's legislature is controlled by Republicans. Adams predicted an
easy win for Brewer.

"I believe we'll have the votes to do it," Adams said. "Arizona simply
can't afford this legislation unless the Feds are willing to foot the
bill and they aren't."

Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell wrote his state's
Republican Attorney General Tom Corbett on Thursday asking him "to
refrain from taking any legal action."

Rendell said that because the state's budget is already "at least half
a billion dollars out of balance, incurring the costs of a federal
lawsuit on this matter is simply not in Pennsylvania's best
interests."

Meanwhile, Republican state senators in Connecticut have asked their
state's Democratic Attorney General Richard Blumenthal to sue to block
the law as well. On Wednesday, Blumenthal said he had received the
request but only committed to reviewing it.

Republican California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said on Wednesday
he plans to work with the federal government, but added that he has
reservations about the law's effect on his state's finances.

"My concern about the federal government's healthcare reform is only
how do we fund it, because they have shifted the funding from the
federal government and said, 'Hey you, state, we want to cut down on
our deficit, so you pick up the difference and you go,' and it will
cost us $3 billion more," Schwarzenegger said on Wednesday.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown, a Democrat and former
governor running for the state's top office, said on Tuesday he has
told deputies to "carefully review" the lawsuit after being asked to
join it by Republican lawmakers.

In the same statement, Brown signaled the low chances of his joining
the lawsuit: "Health care is not the place, with people's lives at
stake, to engage in poisonous partisanship. At this critical time in
our nation's history, we need to come together to forge a common
purpose."

(Additional reporting by Joan Gralla in New York; Editing by James
Dalgleish)

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

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