Florida Attorney General McCollum wants states to resist health care bill

Florida Attorney General McCollum wants states to resist health care bill
By BILL COTTERELL • news-press.com Capital Bureau • December 30, 2009

— TALLAHASSEE — Attorney General Bill McCollum called on other states’ legal officers Tuesday to review a “tax on living” in the pending federal health-care proposals.


In a conference call with reporters, McCollum also said he might mount a court challenge if the final health package includes a Senate provision requiring the federal government to cover future Medicaid costs in Nebraska. That was added last week for Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., who provided the 60th vote needed by President Obama and Senate Democrats to get the plan to a vote.


State Sen. Dan Gelber of Miami Beach, a Democratic candidate for attorney general, accused McCollum, a Republican, of pouncing on the controversy to advance his own campaign for governor. Gelber said McCollum didn’t use his discretion as the state’s chief legal officer to enforce a state constitutional requirement for adequate funding of education, but chose to make a “legal review” of health care because that issue stirs the conservative base among Republicans and independent voters.



McCollum said “there are a lot of other problems” with the health package, but his main legal objection focused on a requirement all citizens get insurance or pay into a fund that would help cover their medical costs if they get sick or injured. Proponents of the plan have said the mandate is no different than requiring drivers to have auto insurance, but McCollum said people are not required to have a car or to drive.


“I call this a living tax. It’s a tax on living,” McCollum said. “There are serious questions whether a tax of this nature is constitutional.”


Similarly, he said Social Security and Medicaid taxes are “an excise or income tax” related to employment and people who don’t have jobs are not forced to pay them. A mandate to have insurance or pay a fee has no such link to an activity like driving or holding a job, McCollum said.


Several Republican state legislators have proposed the state invoke the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which says all powers not reserved to Washington are vested in the states and the people. McCollum, who served 20 years in Congress, said a 10th Amendment challenge might be one avenue for a legal challenge.