“This whole campaign challenging the constitutionality of health care reform is just the latest chapter in a long pageant of conservative right-wing scare tactics designed to frighten people into thinking health care reform is a horrific change for America,” said Lazarus. “It really is a natural heir to the ‘death panels’, a natural heir to the ‘government takeover.’ These lawsuits that are being filed now, if you take a look at them, frankly they’re embarrassing from a legal standpoint. They’re totally frivolous. I’m confident they’ll be summarily dismissed even by conservative federal judges.”– Simon Lazarus, public policy counsel for the National Senior Citizens Law Center.
Here’s an interesting “for it before he was against it” morsel, courtesy of The Plum Line:
“One of the state attorneys general who has signed onto a nationally-watched lawsuit to overturn health reform is Republican Greg Abbott of Texas. The lawsuit alleges that the new law is unconstitutional because it imposes a mandate requiring citizens to buy insurance.
Turns out, however, that Abbott strongly supported a law in Texas last year that requires divorced parents to purchase insurance for their kids, even if they prefer to pay for their medical expenses out of pocket.”