Analysis: Call for state to join federal health suit threat

Del. Pat McDonough, a Baltimore County Republican exploring a race for governor, plans to request Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler to join attorneys general from 13 other states in a threat to file lawsuits against the U.S. government if the federal health care reform bill passes. McDonough has scheduled a Thursday news conference.

The attorneys general, all Republicans led by Henry McMaster of South Carolina, claim the health care reform bill is unconstitutional because it provides specific consideration to certain states. This refers to the deal struck for Nebraska allowing the state to pay lower Medicaid costs. Check out number four on this Time Magazine list for more.

Raquel Guillory, spokesman for Democrat Gansler, would not comment on “a lawsuit that does not exist yet,” but said that the Attorney General’s office was looking into the issue of the federal bill’s constitutionality.

-Erich Wagner

About The Author

Len Lazarick

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Len Lazarick was the founding editor and publisher of MarylandReporter.com and is currently the president of its nonprofit corporation and chairman of its board He was formerly the State House bureau chief of the daily Baltimore Examiner from its start in April 2006 to its demise in February 2009. He was a copy editor on the national desk of the Washington Post for eight years before that, and has spent decades covering Maryland politics and government.