[JURIST] The US House of Representatives [official website] filed a lawsuit [complaint, PDF] against the Department of Health and Human Services [official website] and the Department of Treasury [official website] on Friday for the departments’ alleged abuse of their executive powers through conduct promoting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) [text, PDF]. The House claims that certain executive branch departments have violated and continue to violate Article I [text] of the US Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) [text, PDF] by using non-appropriated taxpayer funds to pay insurance companies to implement a program authorized by the ACA. The House estimates that these payments will cost taxpayers an estimated $3 billion at the end of the 2014 Fiscal Year, and $175 billion over the next 10 years. The House also claims that the Department of the Treasury has violated the constitution by imposing a regulation that amends ACA provisions in a way that creates mandates on employers with more than 50 employees to offer health care coverage. The House estimated that this mandate will cost taxpayers at $12 billion. House Speaker John Boehner [official website] issued a statement [press release] about the Executive Branch’s unilateral actions: “If the president can get away with making his own laws, future presidents will have the ability to as well. The House has an obligation to stand up for the Constitution.” This lawsuit has been long anticipated by the House, which passed a resolution [JURIST report] in July authorizing Boehner to go ahead with the lawsuit.

Comprehensive health care reform [JURIST backgrounder] was passed by Congress in March 2010 after over a year of debate, and legal challenges surrounding the provisions of the ACA have reinvigorated legal debate in 2014. In July two US federal appeals courts issued conflicting rulings [JURIST report] within hours of one another on the issue of whether subsidies may be awarded by the federal government in states that elect not to set up their own health insurance exchange. The US Supreme Court [official website] has agreed to rule on the issue [JURIST]. The Supreme Court ruled [JURIST report] in June that closely held corporations can deny contraceptive coverage to their employees for religious reasons in the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby [SCOTUSblog backgrounder] decision. Two weeks after the Hobby Lobby decision, US Senators Patty Murray (D-WA) and Mark Udall (D-CO) introduced a bill [JURIST report] to restore full contraception coverage for employees of closely held corporations.