Posted on 01/02/2014 10:18:55 AM PST by Sub-Driver
January 02, 2014, 12:54 pm 11 attorneys general slam Obama healthcare fixes as illegal
By Rebecca Shabad
Eleven GOP attorneys general say the Obama administration is breaking the law by repeatedly making changes to ObamaCare without going through Congress.
The attorneys general specifically criticize President Obama's executive action that allowed insurance companies to keep offering health plans that had been canceled for not meeting ObamaCare's more rigorous standards.
“We support allowing citizens to keep their health insurance coverage, but the only way to fix this problem-ridden law is to enact changes lawfully: through Congressional action,” the attorneys general wrote in a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “The illegal actions by this administration must stop.” They say the healthcare fix was “flatly illegal under federal constitutional and statutory law.”
HHS did not respond to a request for comment.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey wrote the letter, which was signed by his counterparts in Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia.
Signatories include Gregg Abbott of Texas — who’s running for governor this year — and Ken Cuccinelli of Virginia.
James D. “Buddy” Caldwell of Louisiana was previously a member of the Democratic Party, but switched to the GOP in 2011.
Republicans have often criticized the administration for making changes to the law after the fact. Other switches included the decision to delay the employer insurance mandate for a year, something many lawmakers said should have required a congressional vote.
Obama changed the law to allow insurance companies to allow canceled plans after coming under criticism when millions of people found out their plans were no longer being offered despite Obama's repeated promise that under ObamaCare, people would be able to keep their insurance plans if they liked them.
The change, the Republican attorney generals argue, exceeds precedents set by Supreme Court decisions.
The officials point to the 1985 Heckler v. Chaney case, in which the Supreme Court concluded that some enforcement actions of laws might be subject to judicial review first.
Security on the state and federal health insurance exchanges is another major issue the Republicans say they want the Obama administration to improve.
HHS continues to “ignore the widespread public outcry over the security of consumers’ private information” on exchanges,” they wrote, adding that they’re concerned about the administration’s decision to “not propose and implement rigorous privacy standards for outreach personnel.”
Would the Boney Ohioan come to his rescue?
What does Obastard care about the law. He IS the law! /s
In a Marxist dictatorship, there is no such thing as ‘privacy’ (except for those in control). We’re being desensitized to accepting there’s no expectation of privacy for us anymore, not just the fact that there’s no representative government here anymore.
The shadowy cabal of leftists for whom Hussein fronts — care not a whit about the law.
AGs also took issue with Obama’s lotteries in 2008 (send in a donation and get entered to win a dinner date/plane ticket to see Obama in person) yet there was no prosecution and the issue didn’t even rate attention when he did it again in 2012.
They were SUPPOSED to add a free mechanism to sign up for the drawing but never did.
The law is illegal, and so is an executive ordering changes to the law.
Well Illegal is Obama’s middle name
I’m with you. And not just GOPe Congress either. Dems should think twice about executive branch overreach.
Who’s to say their term being in the minority or under a GOP admin would never arrive.
But we all know, first sign of a rumor of an Imperial Directive (by anybody else but themselves), they will be CRYing to the media tubes 24/7.
11 tick NSA files are on the way to Hawaii.
If they could get past the supreme court of lawlessness then I would recommend that they not only go after the White House, but that they go after the Insurance companies that are breaking the real law. It would send a clear message against this kind of illegal law making.
This problem for this law is the same as the reason why the Supreme Court shot down the line item veto.
When a law is passed it is illegal to change the law in any way without going through Congress because to change it makes it an entirely new law not passed by Congress. Therefore, it is not legal.
Yes, to change one tittle on it nullifies it.
So, when a president takes a law and does something different with it, whether he adds something to it that wasn't there in the first place or scratches something off of it, it is still illegal because it did not go through the specific channel laid out by the Constitution.
If the president wants to make a change, to add something or scratch something off he must send it back to Congress and make it available to be voted on again as a new bill.
bttt
That is what I have been saying (and making no friends at work). Virtually every one of them that is not taking some kind of action to stop these illegal activities is JUST as guilty and should be impeached. To a man and woman.
The fact that Attorney Generals from eleven states have to point out that all of the changes to Obamacare are illegal should prove how bad the situation is between the three branches of government.
Now that the AGs have given zero’s regime “what for”, what’s their next step. Are they planning to take their case to the (zero-controlled) courts? The AG’s letter, while quite correct, consists of words. And words are all we have.
And the states can easily make the point by suing the Insurance companies for big money for breaking the law. Lets see how the courts can say that the law has changed just because the whitehouse says it has. That would be really interesting. It would be the quick way to get this issue into the courts.
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