Carcieri, Lynch differ on reform lawsuit

PROVIDENCE – More and more states are joining Florida’s lawsuit challenging the health care reform law, preparing to pass legislation that directly defies the law, and organizing voter initiatives. But despite Gov. Donald L. Carcieri’s wishes, Rhode Island isn’t going there.
Carcieri last week urged Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch to join the Florida lawsuit, which calls the health care reform law “a violation of the equal protection and commerce clauses and the 10th amendment, among other constitutional provisions.”
Carcieri urged Lynch to “exercise [Rhode Island’s] discretion to protect our citizens from this unnecessary and probably unconstitutional intrusion of the federal government into the lives of Rhode Islanders whose freedoms to make their own choices about health care should be preserved and protected.”
And the governor reiterated his contention that the law will “raise the costs of health care to Rhode Islanders, lower the quality of care, and shift another unfunded mandate on a state already overburdened with budget deficits.”
But Lynch, an enthusiastic supporter of health care reform, isn’t having it.
“To be clear and with all due respect, I have no intention of filing a lawsuit,” he promptly replied in a letter to the governor.
First of all, he said, “I believe that access to quality health care should be the right of all citizens, not the privilege of some citizens,” and the reform law is “an historic and long-overdue start” to fulfilling President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s proposed Economic Bill of Rights, which included the right to adequate medical care.
“The new law is not an attack or infringement upon states’ rights or the liberties of individual Americans,” Lynch added. “Rather, it is a major improvement over the status quo.”
Second, the attorney general said, the lawsuit “has no merit – and no chance of success.” He cited the opinions of multiple constitutional scholars who have said as much, and he concluded that, given the state’s financial situation, “undertaking such a lawsuit would be a time-consuming and fruitless waste of the tax dollars of Rhode Islanders on what I regard to be, in all candor, a political stunt.”