STF na MÃdia - MyClipp
STF na MÃdia - MyClipp
STF na MÃdia - MyClipp
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The New York Times/ - N.Y./Region, Qui, 12 de Abril de 2012<br />
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)<br />
Cuomo Acts to Advance Health Law in<br />
New York<br />
ALBANY — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, stepping into the<br />
<strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l debate over President Obama’s health care<br />
law, used his executive power on Thursday to carry<br />
out one of its critical features in New York after the<br />
state’s Republican lawmakers blocked legislation to do<br />
so. Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat who has generally<br />
avoided <strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l politics even as he is often mentioned<br />
as a potential candidate for president, offered an<br />
enthusiastic endorsement of the benefits of the health<br />
care measure, which is currently being litigated before<br />
the Supreme Court and contested in this year’s<br />
presidential campaign. Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat who<br />
has generally avoided <strong>na</strong>tio<strong>na</strong>l politics even as he is<br />
often mentioned as a potential candidate for president,<br />
offered an enthusiastic endorsement of the benefits of<br />
the health care measure, which is currently being<br />
litigated before the Supreme Court and contested in<br />
this year’s presidential campaign. As he issued an<br />
executive order to establish a health insurance<br />
exchange, an online marketplace where individuals<br />
and small businesses can choose among competing<br />
health insurance plans, Mr. Cuomo said it would drive<br />
down the cost of insurance while helping the 2.7<br />
million uninsured New Yorkers get affordable<br />
coverage. “The bottom line,” Mr. Cuomo said in a<br />
statement, “is that creating this health exchange will<br />
lower the cost of health insurance for small<br />
businesses, local governments and individual New<br />
Yorkers across the state.” For nearly a year, Mr.<br />
Cuomo asked the Legislature to set up the exchange.<br />
But the Republican majority in the State Se<strong>na</strong>te<br />
refused to consider the measure, arguing that<br />
approving the exchange would amount to condoning<br />
the law, the Affordable Care Act, which they deride as<br />
Obamacare. The Se<strong>na</strong>te Republicans also cited the<br />
uncertainty surrounding the health care law, given the<br />
Supreme Court challenge, and last month, they<br />
blocked Mr. Cuomo from including the exchange in the<br />
state budget for the fiscal year that began April 1. The<br />
health care law requires each state to put an insurance<br />
exchange in place by 2014, and gives the federal<br />
government the power to do so in states that do not<br />
act on their own. Mr. Cuomo, u<strong>na</strong>ble to win support for<br />
the exchange in the State Se<strong>na</strong>te, vowed to move<br />
ahead unilaterally, and on Thursday, he signed the<br />
order to set up the exchange within the State Health<br />
Department, rather than as a separate state entity, as<br />
his origi<strong>na</strong>l legislation had sought to do. Mr. Cuomo’s<br />
order drew praise on Thursday from Democratic<br />
lawmakers, health advocacy groups and leaders in the<br />
state’s health care industry. Kenneth E. Raske, the<br />
president of the Greater New York Hospital<br />
Association, called the move “a way of alleviating the<br />
current crisis facing those that don’t have access to<br />
care because of lack of insurance.” But Mr. Cuomo’s<br />
move irked some conservatives, who are determined<br />
to fight the health care law and view state capitals as<br />
important battlegrounds in which the law’s<br />
implementation can be contested. State Se<strong>na</strong>tor<br />
Gregory R. Ball, Republican of Put<strong>na</strong>m County, who<br />
has been one of the most vocal critics of the health<br />
exchange proposal, said Mr. Cuomo was acting<br />
prematurely, given the Supreme Court case. Mr. Ball<br />
also criticized the governor for “sidestepping the<br />
Legislature” to set up the exchange. “Enlisting our<br />
state in a program that may cease to exist on both<br />
constitutio<strong>na</strong>l and administrative grounds is, in my<br />
opinion, overly aggressive and fundamentally<br />
imprudent,” Mr. Ball said. Michael F. Cannon, the<br />
director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, a<br />
libertarian research center in Washington, said that<br />
refusing to pass legislation to set up a health exchange<br />
was “the most powerful blow that a state can strike<br />
against Obamacare,” and questioned Mr. Cuomo’s use<br />
of an executive order. “King Andrew shouldn’t be out<br />
creating new bureaucracies on his own,” Mr. Cannon<br />
said. “If the people’s elected representatives say they<br />
don’t want to create a new government bureaucracy,<br />
then the government doesn’t have the power to create<br />
a new government bureaucracy.” Since the passage of<br />
the Affordable Care Act, 11 states have set up<br />
insurance exchanges, according to the Natio<strong>na</strong>l<br />
Conference of State Legislatures. Ten did so with<br />
legislation; only one — Rhode Island — used an<br />
executive order, and a lawsuit challenging the authority<br />
of that order is pending. Mr. Cuomo’s office defended<br />
the use of an executive order, noting that the state<br />
would rely on federal fi<strong>na</strong>ncing to set up the exchange,<br />
rather than any new state spending, and that it would<br />
not set up a new governmental body. New York has<br />
already received $88 million in federal grants to plan<br />
for its health exchange; setting up the exchange will<br />
allow the state to seek additio<strong>na</strong>l federal fi<strong>na</strong>ncing.<br />
“The activities that are necessary to implement the<br />
exchange are within the existing legal authority of the<br />
Department of Health, in which it will be based, and<br />
the other agencies with which it will work, including the<br />
Department of Fi<strong>na</strong>ncial Services,” Mr. Cuomo’s<br />
counsel, Mylan L. Denerstein, said in a statement.<br />
Peter J. Kier<strong>na</strong>n, who served as chief counsel for<br />
20