Last October the judge rejected the U.S. Department of Justices arguments and allowed two critical claims raised by the States to move forward: (1) the individual mandate is an unconstitutional exercise of Congress' authority under the Commerce Clause; and (2) the costly expansion of Medicaid and the States inability to effectively opt-out of the program amount to an unconstitutional coercion of the States at the hands of Congress. The court currently has under advisement summary judgment motions filed by all parties.
Horne stated: "The 10th amendment provides that all powers not expressly delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states or the people respectively. The constitution does not give the power to the federal government to force people to buy things they don't want to buy, such as health insurance. The requirement in the Obama bill that they do so is therefore unconstitutional. In addition, the bill requires states to make huge expenditures that they would not otherwise make, which is also unconstitutional. In the case of Arizona, this is a requirement to spend an additional $1 billion per year, approximately, which is money that Arizona does not have."
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