INDIANAPOLIS | Indiana will join a multistate lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the recently approved national health reform law.
Attorney General Greg Zoeller said Monday the state will sign on to a court case filed last week by 13 other states that claims Congress exceed its authority by creating an individual mandate to purchase health insurance.
"This is an insurance product that everybody, as a condition of being a citizen of the United States, will be required to purchase under the threat of penalties," Zoeller said. "This is the first time the federal government has required people to purchase a commercial good."
The Republican attorney general said it's in the best interests of all Americans that the Supreme Court determine whether Congress has the power to impose such a mandate.
"This is such a large program that's almost unprecedented that everyone's going to need to know the answer whether this is constitutional or not," Zoeller said.
With Zoeller now on board, 13 of the 14 state attorneys general suing to stop health care reform are Republicans. The new law was a legislative priority for President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and won congressional approval without a single Republican vote.
Zoeller said that while he believes the law was enacted through a fiercely political process, his motivation for acting has nothing to do with politics.
"I'll stand by the proposition that when the sovereignty of our state government is in question, I think it's really a responsibility to raise the challenge," Zoeller said.
Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels said last week he encouraged Zoeller to join the lawsuit. The attorney general's office also received some 7,000 e-mail messages, 100 phone calls and more than a dozen letters supporting a court challenge.
By joining with other states in the lawsuit, Indiana will be able to save money compared to the cost of filing its own challenge to the health reform law, Zoeller said.
He wouldn't estimate how much Indiana might spend on the case, but said "I doubt you'll see a large figure at the end of this."
The health reform lawsuit was filed in federal court in Pensacola, Fla., seven minutes after Obama signed health reform into law. The lawsuit will be amended soon to include Indiana and its claims, Zoeller said.
