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The New York Times/ ­- N.Y./Region, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)
Cuomo Acts to Advance Health Law in
New York
ALBANY — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, stepping into the
national debate over President Obama’s health care
law, used his executive power on Thursday to carry
out one of its critical features in New York after the
state’s Republican lawmakers blocked legislation to do
so. Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat who has generally
avoided national politics even as he is often mentioned
as a potential candidate for president, offered an
enthusiastic endorsement of the benefits of the health
care measure, which is currently being litigated before
the Supreme Court and contested in this year’s
presidential campaign. Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat who
has generally avoided national politics even as he is
often mentioned as a potential candidate for president,
offered an enthusiastic endorsement of the benefits of
the health care measure, which is currently being
litigated before the Supreme Court and contested in
this year’s presidential campaign. As he issued an
executive order to establish a health insurance
exchange, an online marketplace where individuals
and small businesses can choose among competing
health insurance plans, Mr. Cuomo said it would drive
down the cost of insurance while helping the 2.7
million uninsured New Yorkers get affordable
coverage. “The bottom line,” Mr. Cuomo said in a
statement, “is that creating this health exchange will
lower the cost of health insurance for small
businesses, local governments and individual New
Yorkers across the state.” For nearly a year, Mr.
Cuomo asked the Legislature to set up the exchange.
But the Republican majority in the State Senate
refused to consider the measure, arguing that
approving the exchange would amount to condoning
the law, the Affordable Care Act, which they deride as
Obamacare. The Senate Republicans also cited the
uncertainty surrounding the health care law, given the
Supreme Court challenge, and last month, they
blocked Mr. Cuomo from including the exchange in the
state budget for the fiscal year that began April 1. The
health care law requires each state to put an insurance
exchange in place by 2014, and gives the federal
government the power to do so in states that do not
act on their own. Mr. Cuomo, unable to win support for
the exchange in the State Senate, vowed to move
ahead unilaterally, and on Thursday, he signed the
order to set up the exchange within the State Health
Department, rather than as a separate state entity, as
his original legislation had sought to do. Mr. Cuomo’s
order drew praise on Thursday from Democratic
lawmakers, health advocacy groups and leaders in the
state’s health care industry. Kenneth E. Raske, the
president of the Greater New York Hospital
Association, called the move “a way of alleviating the
current crisis facing those that don’t have access to
care because of lack of insurance.” But Mr. Cuomo’s
move irked some conservatives, who are determined
to fight the health care law and view state capitals as
important battlegrounds in which the law’s
implementation can be contested. State Senator
Gregory R. Ball, Republican of Putnam County, who
has been one of the most vocal critics of the health
exchange proposal, said Mr. Cuomo was acting
prematurely, given the Supreme Court case. Mr. Ball
also criticized the governor for “sidestepping the
Legislature” to set up the exchange. “Enlisting our
state in a program that may cease to exist on both
constitutional and administrative grounds is, in my
opinion, overly aggressive and fundamentally
imprudent,” Mr. Ball said. Michael F. Cannon, the
director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, a
libertarian research center in Washington, said that
refusing to pass legislation to set up a health exchange
was “the most powerful blow that a state can strike
against Obamacare,” and questioned Mr. Cuomo’s use
of an executive order. “King Andrew shouldn’t be out
creating new bureaucracies on his own,” Mr. Cannon
said. “If the people’s elected representatives say they
don’t want to create a new government bureaucracy,
then the government doesn’t have the power to create
a new government bureaucracy.” Since the passage of
the Affordable Care Act, 11 states have set up
insurance exchanges, according to the National
Conference of State Legislatures. Ten did so with
legislation; only one — Rhode Island — used an
executive order, and a lawsuit challenging the authority
of that order is pending. Mr. Cuomo’s office defended
the use of an executive order, noting that the state
would rely on federal financing to set up the exchange,
rather than any new state spending, and that it would
not set up a new governmental body. New York has
already received $88 million in federal grants to plan
for its health exchange; setting up the exchange will
allow the state to seek additional federal financing.
“The activities that are necessary to implement the
exchange are within the existing legal authority of the
Department of Health, in which it will be based, and
the other agencies with which it will work, including the
Department of Financial Services,” Mr. Cuomo’s
counsel, Mylan L. Denerstein, said in a statement.
Peter J. Kiernan, who served as chief counsel for
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