Arizona gears up to battle health care law
Jun 28, 2012, 7:48 AM | Updated: 3:11 pm
While the Supreme Court upheld key parts of President Obama’s health care reform bill, Arizona is among the states challenging the constitutionality of that overhaul.
The lawsuit covers about 22,000 people statewide, including some 14,000 people in the Phoenix area.
Republican Gov. Jan Brewer’s administration is moving to implement part of the contested law by reviewing health insurance rates to see if they should be labeled unjustifiably high.
The state also has accepted a federal grant to create a state health insurance exchange.
There are 1.28 million residents without health insurance.
The court found problems with the law’s expansion of Medicaid. But even there,
it said the expansion could proceed as long as the federal government doesn’t
threaten to withhold the entire Medicaid allotment to states if they don’t take
part in the extension.
