Judgment day begins on health care law

Oral arguments began today before the U.S. Supreme Court in the challenge to the federal health care law. Kansas is one of the states opposing the law. Attorney General Derek Schmidt wrote a commentary in the Sunday Eagle that summarized the states’ case. “We are challenging the authority of the federal government to commandeer American citizens (through the individual mandate) and to commandeer state taxpayers (through the required Medicaid expansion) in pursuit of Washington’s objectives,” Schmidt wrote. “No matter the nobility of its purpose, Congress may not use extra-constitutional powers that it simply does not possess.”