Have the feds stepped over the line? It would appear so according to a report from Forbes Magazine. Peter Ferrara reports the Social Security Institute (not to be confused with the SSA) and the American Civil Rites Union (ACRU) filed an amicus curiae brief at the Supreme Court.arguing that Obama Care's expansion and transformation of the Medicaid program violates the Tenth Amendment under the Court’s Coercion Doctrine. In overstepping the bounds between acceptable pressure and unacceptable compulsion, Obama Care transgresses state sovereignty and violates the constitutional framework of federalism.
Without going into great detail the Medicaid requires an all or none approach to receiving federal matching funds. A refusal to accept the mandate could lead to a loss of all Medi-caid matching funds.
Medicaid is an all-or-nothing, take-it-or-leave-it proposition for the states; they must comply with all federal terms and conditions as a requirement of participating in any part of the program. Consequently, Medicaid has become a contract of adhesion, which gives the appearance of mutual consent between both parties but, in fact, allows one party to impose terms on the other party who has no real ability to negotiate terms due to its extremely unequal bargaining position.
To change the terms so drastically to the detriment of the states of what might originally have been a truly “voluntary” program—now, after the states have become financially dependent on (literally addicted to) the federal aid it offers—saps all semblance of “voluntariness” from Medicaid.
The brief calls this ‘unacceptable coercion’ and violates the terms of the tenth amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
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