On the eve of the one-year anniversary of the president’s health care bill, top GOP oversight official Rep. Darrell Issa is introducing legislation to halt funding on implementation of the law until a series of lawsuits challenging its constitutionality are resolved.
The legislation comes after two separate federal courts have ruled the law unconstitutional. In one case, Judge Roger Vinson of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida ruled the law must be declared void “in full.”
The matter is expected to have a final ruling at the Supreme Court.
“While ObamaCare remains, at best, in Constitutional limbo, it’s beyond reckless to allow taxpayer dollars to be spent hiring new government regulators to oversee the creation of its massive and legally dubious bureaucracy,” California Republican Issa said in a written statement.
If the House passes the bill, it could face steep odds in the Senate, where Democrats hold a majority. The legislation could also face a veto from President Obama. The Obama administration vowed to continue implementing the law even in the face of the adverse court rulings.
Rep. Joe Walsh, Illinois Republican and chair of the oversight committee’s health subcommittee, introduced the bill with Issa.
At issue in the ongoing litigation is whether the “individual mandate,” which imposes a fine on individuals who do not purchase health insurance, is constitutional.
Vinson argues the mandate is an “unprecedented” exercise of federal power because it regulates a lack of economic activity, not economic activity itself.
“It would be a radical departure from existing case law to hold that Congress can regulate inactivity under the Commerce Clause. If it has the power to compel an otherwise passive individual into a commercial transaction with a third party merely by asserting — as was done in the act — that compelling the actual transaction is itself ‘commercial and economic in nature, and substantially affects interstate commerce,’ it is not hyperbolizing to suggest that Congress could do almost anything it wanted,” Vinson ruled.
