(Bloomberg) — U.S. House Republicans made good on a vote to sue the Obama administration over implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care of 2010 (PPACA) with a lawsuit naming the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Treasury as defendants.
Republicans in July voted to sue over PPACA, and today they claimed in a complaint filed in the U.S. district court in the District of Columbia that the president exceeded his constitutional powers when he delayed one of the measure's central requirements without a vote of Congress.
"Time after time, the president has chosen to ignore the will of the American people and rewrite federal law on his own," Republican House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement. "If this president can get away with making his own laws, future presidents will have the ability to as well."
The lawsuit challenges Obama's allegedly unlawful waiver of the employer mandate, a requirement that most employers provide health insurance to workers. The House also claimed the transfer of about $175 billion to insurance companies was illegal.
The PPACA lawsuit comes the day after President Barack Obama, in a nationally televised speech, announced actions to ease immigration restrictions to allow some illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S. Republican leaders of Congress warned against such actions as being beyond the power of the president, and some state officials have threatened to sue.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said yesterday that "Congress will act" if Obama eases deportations of undocumented immigrants on his own. Senate Democrats said Obama is acting on immigration because House Republicans have refused to pass legislation since the senators approved a bipartisan plan in 2013.
