AG Rutledge Urges Court to Halt Obamacare

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas, April 26 -- Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge issued the following news release:

Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge has joined a 20-state coalition requesting a preliminary injunction against the federal government's Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

"Obamacare has put an undue financial burden on Arkansans," said Attorney General Rutledge. "The Court should grant the preliminary injunction and end this unconstitutional program."

When the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare in 2012, a majority of the justices stated that the individual mandate was legal through the taxing power of Congress, but not through the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. The commerce power, Chief Justice Roberts explained, gives Congress the power to regulate commerce, and not to compel commerce, as Obamacare does. Congress and the Obama Administration made it clear that the individual mandate was an essential component of the law, without which the remainder of the law would not have been enacted.

In its current unlawful form, Obamacare still imposes rising costs and transfers an enormous amount of regulatory power to the federal government. Around 70 percent of U.S. counties present citizens with a noncompetitive situation, having only one or two health insurers.

In February, the same 20-state coalition filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare, explaining that Congress rendered all of Obamacare unconstitutional by doing away with the tax penalty in Obamacare's individual mandate when it enacted President Donald J. Trump's tax overhaul.

In addition to Arkansas, the coalition - led by Texas and Wisconsin - includes the attorneys general of Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and West Virginia, along with the governors of Maine and Mississippi.