President Pro Tempore Coffee, Speaker Benge Call for Legal Action on "ObamaCare"

Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn Coffee and House Speaker Chris Benge urged Oklahoma’s Attorney General on Monday to file suit against the federal government, challenging the constitutionality of yesterday’s health care legislation.

The Democrat Jobs Elimination Bill of 2010, as Coffee referred to it, will impose half a trillion dollars in new taxes on American families. It will cost Oklahoma one billion dollars over the next 10 years in new spending. In their letter to Attorney General Drew Edmondson, Coffee and Benge simply said, “The people of our state don’t want it. The taxpayers can’t afford it.”

“If the measure becomes law, it will wreck Oklahoma’s already fragile state budget and place undue economic hardships on the people, especially our seniors, and businesses of our great state,” the letter states.

Coffee further added, “The process that has occurred is an insult to our representative Republic and threatens our nation’s prosperity and freedom.”

“Approval of this heavy-handed, federal health care legislation is not only bad for Oklahoma, but represents an unprecedented overreaching by the federal government that will forever change the democratic nature of our country,” said House Speaker Chris Benge, R-Tulsa.

“Our state is poised to build on the successes we have seen with our nationally-recognized Insure Oklahoma program and other efforts to reduce the uninsured. But, unfortunately the Democratic-controlled Congress and the Democratic president obviously plan to ignore state efforts and concerns, so we have no choice but to take immediate action,” Benge concluded.

The legislation passed over the weekend is a partisan plan and bad fiscal policy, which will cost teachers, corrections officers, state troopers, firefighters, and many others their jobs when taxes are raised to fund Obamacare.

President Obama’s health care reform will raid $52 billion from Social Security; cut nearly $500 billion from Medicare, not counting the hundreds of billions needed to compensate doctors who treat elderly patients; takeover the student loan industry, using the profits to pay for the bill; and add millions of people to Medicaid, a failing program in which many doctors and pharmacists refuse to participate.

Thirty-eight states have rallied together in resistance to this bill, by filing or intending to file legislation that protects their states from Obamacare. The Oklahoma Senate passed SJR 64 last month with bipartisan support, which directs the Attorney General to file a suit on behalf of the State of Oklahoma to prevent federal health care legislation from taking effect passed. Coffee says he had hoped to present Edmondson with an official joint resolution passed by both houses and signed by the Governor, but Congress’ actions last night demand swift action.

Upon calling on the Attorney General to act, Coffee and Benge also urged their fellow colleagues on the other side of the aisle to heed their constituents’ voices and stand with them in opposition to this bill.

Coffee/Benge Joint Healthcare Letter to AG