Health-Law Suit Hints at G.O.P. Divide.
After President Obamas Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010, Republicans at both the state and federal levels seemed to speak with one voice in flatly rejecting it.
But in subsequent years, though most Republican governors remained critical of the health care law, nine accepted a central but optional element, expanding Medicaid programs to cover many more low-income residents of their states. At least four others, urged on by hospitals and business groups, will try to do so this year.
And now, briefs filed last month in support of a major legal challenge to the law King v. Burwell, which is now before the Supreme Court are raising new questions about divisions within the Republican Party over the law.
Such filings, known as amicus briefs, allow interested parties to weigh in on either side of a case. Nearly two dozen briefs were filed on behalf of the plaintiffs in the King case, which the court will hear on March 4, but relatively few Republican state officials signed on.
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