President Obama's signature health care law is about to be thrown back into turbulent waters, as a federal judge told House Republicans on Wednesday that they can move forward with parts of a lawsuit that alleges executive overreach by the administration in implementing the Affordable Care Act.
U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer ruled that the GOP-controlled House has the right to challenge the health care law's use of subsidies to help people who cannot afford insurance coverage. Republican lawmakers claim that the secretaries of Health and Human Services and of the Treasury violated the Constitution by spending funds that were not appropriated by Congress, reported Reuters.
The House argues that Congress never approved the spending of the $175 billion that the government will pay health insurance companies over a decade as reimbursement for offering reduced co-payments for lower-income people, according to the Associated Press.
"The House sues, as an institutional plaintiff, to preserve its power of the purse and to maintain constitutional equilibrium between the executive and the legislature," wrote Collyer, who was appointed to the bench in 2003 by President George W. Bush. "If its non-appropriation claims have merit, which the secretaries deny, the House has been injured in a concrete and particular way. The Court concludes that the House has standing to pursue those constitutional claims."
Collyer denied Republicans' attempt to sue the administration over another issue - the alleged improper amending of the health care law, which delayed the law's mandate that most large employers offer insurance or pay a fine, according to USA Today. GOP lawmakers weren't particularly concerned with the delay, only arguing that the president lacked the authority to do it without first getting congressional approval.
"In contrast, the House's claims that Secretary Lew improperly amended the Affordable Care Act concern only the implementation of a statute, not adherence to any specific constitutional requirement. The House does not have standing to pursue those claims. The Secretaries' motion to dismiss will be denied as to the former and granted as to the latter," Collyer wrote.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said that the ruling demonstrated that the Obama administration's "historic overreach can be challenged by the coequal branch of government with the sole power to create or change the law."
White House spokeswoman Jennifer Friedman said that the decision was unprecedented. "This case is just another partisan attack, this one, paid for by the taxpayers; and we believe the courts will ultimately dismiss it," she said in a statement, according to Reuters.
Department of Justice spokesman Patrick Rodenbush said that the administration will appeal the court's decision.
