Rendell tells Corbett: Drop health care lawsuit
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HARRISBURG -- Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell has renewed his call for Republican Attorney General Tom Corbett to drop out of a lawsuit challenging a new federal health care law.
Mr. Rendell claims the measure, favored by President Barack Obama, will help Pennsylvania senior citizens and small businesses and also stop "reprehensible practices" of insurance companies.
Mr. Rendell made a verbal appeal to Mr. Corbett on Monday not to join a lawsuit filed by attorneys general of 12 others states, all but one of them Republican. But on Tuesday Mr. Corbett said he is indeed going to be a plaintiff, arguing that the new federal law could cost Pennsylvania taxpayers to pay more than $1 billion in extra Medicaid costs for lower-income people without health insurance.
Mr. Corbett also argued that the federal government is "overreaching" its powers and violating the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which reserves many rights for states. Mr. Corbett charged the Obama administration is improperly inserting itself into matters of interstate commerce where it doesn't belong and, basically, telling people to buy a product -- health insurance -- whether they want to or not.
The lawsuit by Mr. Corbett and the others "is focused on the principle of defending the Constitution," said Corbett aide Kevin Harley.
But that didn't stop Mr. Rendell, who leaves office in January, from changing his protest from verbal to written on Thursday. He sent a letter to Mr. Corbett, one of two Republicans who is running for governor in the May primary, asking him to withdraw from the suit. He said the federal affordable health care act "will have an enormous positive impact on the lives of every single Pennsylvanian."
He said the federal laws will give tax credits to 150,000 small firms in the state "that are doing the right thing and providing health care benefits to more than 650,000 employees."
He maintained that the state budget deficit is growing, in part, because of larger Medicaid rolls, as more firms drop health insurance. Medicaid is funded by federal funds as well as several billion state dollars.
Also, Mr. Rendell said, the new laws will stop insurers' "reprehensible practice" of denying coverage to people for pre-existing conditions. By fall, parents will be able to rely on health coverage "to meet the needs of their children regardless of what illness their child may have had in the past."
First Published March 26, 2010 12:00 am
