State Attorney General Tom Corbett insists he helped file a federal lawsuit last week challenging health-care-reform legislation because he thinks it’s unconstitutional to require people to purchase health insurance. That’s policy.
Then there’s politics.
Corbett, who’s running for governor, used the issue to raise money for his campaign, sending supporters a letter lamenting the “health care monstrosity” before it was signed into law last week.
His campaign followed up with an e-mail plea for contributions by Monday, the end of the latest cycle to report campaign finances.
Corbett’s letter said he was “leading the fight” against President Obama’s “plans to impose government-run socialized medicine on Pennsylvania and her citizens.”
Corbett warned that the law would allow bureaucrats to second-guess decisions made by doctors and patients, wrecking the state’s “first-rate, private-sector health care system.”
Corbett’s correspondence will appeal to the conservative voters who turn out for the May 18 Republican primary. But it also plays into the hands of Democrats who accuse him of playing partisan politics with national health-care policy.
Brian Nutt, Corbett’s campaign manager, yesterday said it is Democrats who are playing politics with the lawsuit. He said mandate in the new law was a problem that could grow with time.
“If it’s health care now, a month from now we’ll all have to buy a certain kind of car and a year from now we’ll all have to have the same colored shingles on our roof,” he said. “Or else we’ll have to pay some sort of tax or fine.”
