Boehner Files Lawsuit Over Obamacare

House Speaker John Boehner says The House of Representatives has filed a long-delayed lawsuit over President Obama’s changes to Obamacare.

“Time after time, the president has chosen to ignore the will of the American people and re-write federal law on his own without a vote of Congress. That’s not the way our system of government was designed to work,” Boehner says.

Boehner’s lawsuit announcement came shortly after he expressed his frustration to reporters that the White House circumvented Congress yet again with the president’s Thursday announcement of executive amnesty. 

The House passed a resolution over the summer to allow a lawsuit against Obama over his unilateral alterations to Obamacare. According to the Speaker’s Office, the lawsuit filed Friday will challenge two aspects of Obama’s actions: 

Unlawfully Waiving the Employer Mandate. The House is challenging the president’s unilateral decision to twice waive the health care law’s employer mandate and the penalties for failing to comply with it without going through Congress. The president’s actions delaying the employer mandate directly contradict the clear and plain language of the health care law. 

Illegally Transferring Funds to Insurance Companies. The House is also challenging the administration’s unlawful giveaway of approximately $175 billion to insurance companies under ObamaCare. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the administration will pay approximately $3 billion to insurance companies in FY 2014, and is scheduled to make payments of some $175 billion over the next 10 years to insurance companies under an HHS-based, ObamaCare cost-sharing program even though Congress has never appropriated funds for the program.  The administration is instead unlawfully and unconstitutionally using funds from a separate Treasury Department account – authorized for other purposes – to pay insurance companies and thereby unilaterally altering the structure of the health care law.

Boehner stressed in his statement that the House needs to stand up to protect its power. 

“If this president can get away with making his own laws, future presidents will have the ability to as well,” the Speaker said. “The House has an obligation to stand up for the Constitution, and that is exactly why we are pursuing this course of action.”