In a report issued Monday, Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) highlights the “legal infirmities” of Obamacare, as well as its “lawless” implementation by the administration. “There is no clearer example of the Obama Administration’s abusive view of federal power than its implementation of Obamacare,” Cruz writes in the report, the second he has published this year concerning President Obama’s efforts to expand executive authority.
The report pushes back against the media’s tendency to assert that ”the Supreme Court found Obamacare constitutional.” Cruz notes that several of the law’s provisions have already been struck down, and more rulings are expected next year, most notably in regard to the constitutionality of the employer contraceptive mandate. “More court challenges should be filed to stop the Obama Administration’s lawless implementation of Obamacare,” he writes.
The reports cites several recent examples in which the Obama administration has “disregarded” federal law, including the text of Obamacare itself, such as the president’s November 14 announcement that the administration would delay penalties against insurance companies who continue to offer plans which don’t meet the requirements under Obamacare. The president has taken similar action with regard to the law’s coverage mandate for employers, as well as its limits on out-of-pocket costs. Cruz further charges that the administration “ignored clear federal statutes in erroneously deciding that the federal government would continue subsidizing congressional staff health insurance.”
“Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution requires the President to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed.’” Categorically refusing to enforce laws is the opposite of fulfilling this constitutional duty. Yet that is precisely what President Obama has done with Obamacare,” Cruz writes. “By disregarding the statutory text passed by Congress, the Obama Administration is ignoring the will of the people and governing by unilateral executive fiat. This violates the separation of powers, because the Obama Administration has declared it is willing to exercise the legislative power constitutionally reserved to Congress.”
“Obamacare is hurting millions of Americans. And the Obama Administration’s lawless implementation of Obamacare flouts the constraints of our Constitution. To preserve the rule of law, we must restore the balance of power that ensures our laws are executed as written. We are a nation of laws, not men, and the Obama Administration’s willful disregard of the Constitution threatens the liberty of every American.”
Read the whole report here.