26 States Now in Obamacare Lawsuit

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110118/ap_on_re_us/us_health_overhaul_lawsuit

26 states join Obama health care lawsuit in Fla.

PENSACOLA, Fla. – Six more states joined a lawsuit in Florida against President Obama's health care overhaul on Tuesday, meaning more than half of the country is challenging the law.

The announcement was made as House members in Washington, led by Republicans, debated whether to repeal the law.

The six additional states, all with Republican attorneys general, joined Florida and 19 others in the legal action, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said.

"It sends a strong message that more than half of the states consider the health care law unconstitutional and are willing to fight it in court," she said in a statement.

The states claim the health care law is unconstitutional and violates people's rights by forcing them to buy health insurance by 2014 or face penalties.

Government attorneys have said the states do not have standing to challenge the law and want the case dismissed.

Lawsuits have been filed elsewhere. A federal judge in Virginia ruled in December that the insurance-purchase mandate was unconstitutional, though two other federal judges have upheld the requirement. It's expected the Supreme Court will ultimately have to resolve the issue.

"It is important to note that two of the three courts that have reviewed this law on the merits have found it constitutional, and those decisions _as well as two others the government prevailed on — are pending in courts of appeal. At the same time, trial courts in additional cases have dismissed numerous challenges on jurisdictional and other grounds that have not been appealed," Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said.

Meanwhile, the White House dismissed an expected vote on repealing the law, saying the Republicans' push was not a serious legislative effort. Democrats have a majority in the Senate and they have said they will block repeal in that chamber.

In the Florida case, the states also argue the federal government is violating the Constitution by forcing a mandate on the states without providing money to pay for it. They say the new law gives the state's the impossible choice of accepting the new costs or forfeiting federal Medicaid funding.

Florida U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson could rule later this month whether he will grant a summary judgment in favor of the states or the Obama administration without a trial.

Florida's former Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum filed the lawsuit just minutes after President Barack Obama signed the 10-year, $938 billion health care bill into law in March. He chose a court in Pensacola, one of Florida's most conservative cities. The nation's most influential small business lobby, the National Federation of Independent Business, also joined the suit.

Joining the coalition in the Florida case were: Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Ohio, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

The other states that are suing are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Washington.
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If you count Virginia and Michigan there are 28 states suing the federal government over Obamacare.

 

My bad, there are 27 counting Virginia. Michigan was counted in the 26.

 

I found this with a quick google search. 42% of the people polled were Democrats while only 36% were Republican. Some polls can be easily skewed like this.


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Two New Obamacare Polls Have High Numbers of Democrats, Misleading Questions


Two new polls show declining support for fully repealing Obamacare. Does this mean the GOP, on the verge of passing a bill repealing Obamacare in the House, should back down?

Not so, say GOP pollsters, who argue that the poll questions are poorly worded and that the demographic samples include a disproportionate number of Democrats.
Take the AP poll, which shows that 40 percent of adults support Obamacare and 41 percent oppose it. In November, the last time the AP polled this question, 38 percent supported Obamacare and 47 percent opposed it. But the sample in November was very different: 38 percent Republican and 39 percent Democrat. The sample in January wasn’t so balanced, with 42 percent of the responders Democrat and 36 percent Republican.

Even with the skewed demographics, Kellyanne Conway, president of the polling company, inc./WomanTrend, points out that there also remains “a huge difference in intensity,” with 30 percent strongly opposing Obamacare compared to 21 percent strongly supporting it.

Conway also notes that when asked if they would favor a law “that would require every American to have health insurance, or pay money to the government as a penalty if they do not, unless the person is very poor,” 59 percent are opposed. “When they actually hear what the health care reform is, they’re opposed to it,” she says.

The Marist poll finds that 35 percent of registered voters would like Obamacare changed so that it could do more, 13 percent would like it to do less, and 30 percent would prefer the law be fully repealed. But again, the numbers aren’t equal: 35 percent of those polled were Democrat, and 28 percent Republican. Exit polls for the 2010 election found equal numbers of Democrat and Republican voters, both parties represented by about 36 percent of voters respectively.

In addition, a GOP strategist notes that someone who favors buying insurance across state lines or reforming medical malpractice could interpret the Marist poll choices such that he picks the option that he would like Obamacare to do more.

But the pollsters also point out that many voters didn’t just want Obamacare repealed — they also wanted it replaced with a better system, a distinction that they fear these two polls didn’t adequately address with their word choices. John McLaughlin, CEO of McLaughlin and Associates, notes that when his firm asked voters in November if they would prefer to leave Obamacare as is, or repeal and replace it, 30 percent preferred that Obamacare be left in place, and 60 percent wanted it repealed and replaced.

Pollster Scott Rasmussen says that the GOP shouldn’t interpret these new polls as a signal to slow down their efforts to repeal Obamacare.

“People expect the Republicans to do this. It’s an absolutely essential thing for them,” says Rasmussen. “If they didn’t repeal it, the Republican party would be in deep trouble with their own base.”

“People plainly spoke all through 2010,” agrees Conway. “They expect this new Congress they put there to repeal it. And they expect them to work on something different.”

 

Repeal will go nowhere before 2012. The vote in the house will be to put everyone on the record again as to where they stand on the law for the 2012 elections. Florida and the other states plan to petition the SCOTUS for this suit to be fast tracked to the SCOTUS and skip the appellate courts. With so many states participating, I believe their petition will be granted. I also believe the SCOTUS will find the law unconstitutional before any serious repeal efforts get under way. If not, I believe this law is unpopular enough to sweep in a large Republican majority in both chambers of congress and also reclaim the white house in 2012. Then the law will be repealed and replaced.