House Files Litigation Over President's Unilateral Actions on Health Care Law

WASHINGTON, DC -- House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) today announced that the House of Representatives – consistent with the House-passed resolution H.Res. 676 – has filed litigation over President Obama’s unilateral actions on his health care law:

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

NOTE: On July 30, 2014, the House of Representatives passed a resolution authorizing the House of Representatives to initiate litigation to challenge President Obama’s decision to unilaterally change various provisions of the health care law. The suit filed today against the Health & Human Services (HHS) and Treasury Secretaries will address two Executive Branch 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.