A Texas doctor is filing a lawsuit in a Houston federal court this afternoon to challenge the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as "Obamacare."
Dr. Steven Hotze and attorney Andrew Schlafly with the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons hosted a press conference at the Capitol on May 7, 2013 to announce the lawsuit.
"What we were promised was a new healthcare policy and change that would be good for all Americans really has turned out to offer us nothing but higher insurance premiums, higher taxes and a government that will allow its bureaucrats to interfere with the doctor-patient relationship," Hotze said. "And because of that, I felt compelled to try to do my best to overturn the Obamacare bill."
Though the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the Act as a tax, Schlafly said President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act bill did not comply with the origination clause of the U.S. Constitution. A bill that raises revenue must originate in the House, but this bill came out of the Senate.
He said Democrats in the Senate worked around that. They "gutted" a bill that had passed the U.S. House -- a tax credit bill for veterans, he added.
Shlafly said some Democrats admit ObamaCare is a “train wreck,” but no Democrat spoke at the conference. Hotze said Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst have not objected to the lawsuit.