The GOP’s legal challenge

Congressional Republicans this week vowed a campaign to “repeal and replace” parts of the health-care law, while 13 state attorneys general filed suit challenging its constitutionality. The joint lawsuit questions Congress’ authority, under the Commerce Clause, to impose an individual mandate—the law’s requirement that citizens purchase health insurance beginning in 2014. “Nowhere does it say that the federal government can require a private citizen to go out and buy health insurance,” said South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster.

The GOP’s vow to repeal parts of the new law would probably exempt its most popular features, said party leaders, who nonetheless pledged to campaign against the bill in the 2010 midterm elections. Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said “repeal and replace” would be the GOP’s fall slogan, though it was unclear what new proposals would replace current provisions of the law.

“We understand the odds against repeal,” said National Review Online in an editorial. Republicans would need majorities in both houses, and Obama would veto a repeal as long as he is president. But many Americans could defy the mandate to buy coverage, choosing to pay a fine instead. If healthy people opt out, insurance pools will grow more expensive and the public will “blame the Democrats.”

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Don’t rule out the legal challenge just yet, said Dennis Byrne in the Chicago Tribune. The question of whether “the federal government can force you to buy a specific good or service” has never been addressed by the Supreme Court, and considering its conservative majority, anything is possible. Liberals turn to the courts to halt “the tyranny of the majority.” Shouldn’t that apply to “the tyrannical Democratic majority in Congress”?

Pardon me if I’m skeptical of the Republican outrage over the individual mandate, said Jonathan Chait in The New Republic Online. The idea has long been a mainstay of Republican health-care proposals—including former Gov. Mitt Romney’s plan, enacted in Massachusetts. Now they tell us it’s unconstitutional? That tells us “more about Republicans than about the plan itself.”