The president is expected to sign the law today while a companion piece of legislation is debated in the U.S. Senate.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said the law violates state sovereignty and individual rights by requiring individuals to buy health insurance or pay a tax penalty.

“This is going to be a true battle between those in Washington, D.C., who believe that they have unilateral, complete, unfettered power and those in the states who believe there are limits to congressional power,” Abbott said.

States pledging to file the lawsuit are Texas, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Utah, Michigan, Nebraska and Washington, according to the Associated Press. Other states are considering joining the lawsuit or filing legislation to seek exemption from the law.

But some in Texas believe such a lawsuit would be a purely political action without much merit.

State Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, one of President Obama's state advocates for the health care legislation, said there is a long history of such lawsuits failing in the federal courts.

Coleman said the health care law is not unlike states requiring vaccinations for children to attend public schools. And, he said, the requirements on individuals and businesses are similar to the civil rights laws ending separate accommodations for blacks in restaurants and motels.

Gerald Treece, a constitutional law professor at the South Texas College of Law, said the lawsuit could have some merit, but not now.

Treece said for the lawsuit to survive in federal courts, there will have to be a showing of damage. Because the law will be phased in, the costs to individuals and the states will not occur for several years.

“The law, I would break it out into the innings of a ballgame. The first few innings won't be controversial,” Treece said. “The outright warfare breaks out about two years from now.”

Treece said lawsuits filed now likely would be more for “political reasons” than legal ones.

University of Houston constitutional law professor David Crump said he is not a fan of the health care bill, but said it will be hard to argue that Congress cannot make a law that is applicable to everyone in the country.

Perry backs effort

“The state would have an uphill battle,” Crump said. “It's one thing to say it's unwise, and it's another to say it's unconstitutional.”

Gov. Rick Perry issued a statement supporting efforts to block the legislation.

“Texas leaders will continue to do everything in our power to find ways to protect our families, taxpayers and medical providers from the federal government's misguided efforts to take over our health care system and infringe upon the fundamental rights of individuals and the state,” Perry said.

The state is estimating as many as 2 million people will be added to the Texas' public health care system by 2023. The law starts an expansion of Medicaid in 2014.

But Republicans, Democrats and human services advocates differ on how much the legislation will cost the state.

Perry and other Texas Republican leaders said the state Health and Human Services Commission is estimating the new legislation would cost taxpayers $24 billion between 2014 and 2023. Democrats say the legislation's actual cost would be about $2.5 billion between now and 2020, when the bill would face congressional re-authorization.

Disagreement on costs

The federal government will pick up all the cost of the new Medicaid enrollees through 2018, but the state's costs start rising after that.

One of the big differences in the estimates occurs because the state is counting costs in five years when federal funding for the new Medicaid enrollees drops from 100 percent to 90 percent. The Democratic estimate only includes one full year at the lower level.

The Center for Public Policy Priorities, a human services advocacy organization, said at least $6 billion of the HHSC cost estimates include Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program coverage for children who already are eligible but not enrolled.

Center policy analyst Anne Dunkelberg said the legislation should not have a major impact on the budget that will be written by lawmakers next year because the Medicaid caseloads will not start increasing until 2014 due to the law's phase-in period.

Lawmakers are looking at a revenue shortfall next year of at least $12 billion.

rg.ratcliffe@chron.com