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AUGUSTA — Maine has joined 25 other states in a lawsuit to strike down federal health care legislation passed in 2009 and signed by President Barack Obama.
On Jan. 20, a U.S. District Court judge in Florida, where the lawsuit was originally filed, granted a motion allowing Maine and five other states to join the petition. Maine’s newly appointed Attorney General William Schneider said just days before that the move would be an imminent one, as Republican Gov. Paul LePage indicated during the campaign season his dissatisfaction with the law and intent to join his party’s outcry over such legislation.
The Affordable Care Act was a major staple of the Obama Administration’s platform in 2009. It was designed to provide millions of Americans affordable access to health care in addition to preventing private insurance companies from refusing coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
But with an estimated price tag in the billions over the course of a decade, and other controversial provisions like requiring American citizens to purchase coverage in order to help pay for the program, public discourse about the law has caused a heated battle between Republicans and Democrats.
The “lawsuit is not about whether citizens should or should not have health care,” according to the Maine Attorney General’s office, but rather, as Schneider wrote in a statement released Jan. 20, that the grounds for bringing the action are about an “unprecedented expansion of federal power.”
Schneider and LePage, along with many other Republican governors around the country, are seeking to overturn the law, deeming it to be an unconstitutional extension of federal power. The legal challenge takes direct aim at the requirement to purchase health insurance.
However, Schneider and LePage have expressed in the past their shared belief that the health care system needs to be overhauled.
“I know the health care system is in a crisis, but I don’t want to see that fix rest upon an unconstitutional foundation,” Schneider said.
He added that the purchasing mandate was a key motivator behind Maine’s decision to join in the legal challenge.
Meanwhile, the move has prompted many Democratic lawmakers in Augusta to suggest Schneider’s decision was part of a coordinated national effort by Republicans to dismantle what has been hailed as President Obama’s most significant legislative achievement to date.
“Clearly this is a nationally organized effort to undermine the implementation of the Affordable Care Act,” said Rep. Emily Cain, D-Orono. “I think we’re better off sticking to the policy discussion rather than the politics of this.”
Additionally, many Democrats have raised concerns over the cost of joining such a lawsuit. Former Maine Attorney General Janet Mills said such a challenge could cost the state hundreds of thousands of dollars if it reached the Supreme Court.
Schneider and other Republicans, on the other hand, have claimed the cost of such a suit would be much lower and “in the thousands” at most.
“I really think we’re going to find a way to do this with minimal costs,” he said.
Last week, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives voted to repeal the health care law, even though lawmakers in the Democratic-controlled Senate said they would not vote likewise. And two weeks ago, members of the Maine People’s Alliance delivered more than 2,600 postcards to Gov. Paul LePage urging him and Schneider to scrap any plans they had to join the lawsuit.
At that event, Lewiston resident Shanna Rogers told Bangor’s WLBZ 2 that “after three medical battles and four denials of treatment, I am well-versed in the way big insurance companies do business — they place profits above people, as usual.”
Now that Maine has joined the lawsuit, U.S. District Court Judge Roger Vinson issued an order giving other states until May 14 to file amended complaints and join the challenge. Litigation is expected to proceed after that point, which some state officials believe could eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the meantime, states will continue to make preparations in order to implement the stipulations of the health care law, many of which are not expected to take effect until 2014 or beyond.
LePage spokesman Dan Demeritt added that the governor plans to make alternative health care proposals a priority.
“Maine is one of the most expensive places to buy insurance in the country,” he said. “We have too many regulations and too many mandates. What we need to do is get back to a point where doctors and consumers can make their own decisions and get back to the point where there’s competition.”
Bangor Daily News