Texas physician Steve F. Hotze and his business have filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
According to the lawsuit, PPACA took form in the Senate, but all revenue-raising bills must come from the House of Representatives, which is mandated under the Origination Clause in Article 1, Section 7, of the U.S. Constitution. Therefore, the lawsuit deems PPACA as unconstitutional.
"Federal courts can avert the disastrous train wreck of Obamacare by simply applying the Origination Clause to invalidate it," said Andrew Schlafly, the attorney who filed the suit and general counsel to the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.
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"Federal courts in Texas should enjoin the massive, unconstitutional distribution of money away from Texas that would result from application of Obamacare."
AAPS also has a pending lawsuit in the D.C. Circuit that raises Hotze's same arguments, a familiar line among critics of the law.
According to the doctor's suit, PPACA violates the Fifth Amendment by requiring private citizens to pay another private entity, which would be a government-approved insurance company.
No precedent exists that allows for government to take property from one citizen in order to transfer it directly to another. In fact, the lawsuit says that many precedents forbid compelled transfers in compliance with the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
The lawsuit also asserts that because Texas did not adopt the Medicaid expansion called for under the law or establish a health insurance exchange, PPACA will take away hundreds of billions of dollars from the state.
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