Republican legislators back health overhaul challenge

FRANKFORT, Ky. - Nearly all of Kentucky's state-level Republican lawmakers have signed a legal brief in support of a lawsuit challenging President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

"We're tired of sitting out on the sidelines when something of this importance is being deliberated," said Rep. Tim Moore, R-Elizabethtown. "We're now making it clear where we stand, that we want that law undone because it's unconstitutional."

More than 300 lawmakers from 17 states, including nearly 60 from Kentucky, have signed a friend-of-the-court brief that an attorney for the libertarian Cato Institute will file Monday with the U.S. Supreme Court.

Justices announced late last year that they will hear arguments from lawyers in late March on the constitutionality of four provisions, including one that requires people to buy health insurance starting in 2014 or pay a penalty. That's the provision the state lawmakers are weighing in on.

The lawmakers contend that Congress violated the Constitution's commerce clause by compelling people to purchase insurance. Congress, they say, has no right to force people to engage in commerce.

The 2010 health care reform law aims to extend insurance coverage to more than 30 million Americans through measures that include expanding Medicaid and requiring individuals to buy health insurance.