RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina lawmakers are launching their attack on a key provision of the federal health care overhaul law.
The state House voted 66-50 Wednesday to pass a measure that seeks to block a provision requiring people to buy insurance beginning in 2014 or pay a penalty. The Republican-backed bill also aims to force Attorney General Roy Cooper to join a lawsuit to challenge the law.
The bill now moves to the Senate.
Republicans claimed that the federal law violates the basic freedoms of Americans to choose how to spend their money.
Democrats argued during the three-hour debate that scrapping the requirement to buy health insurance would continue the current problem of the insured paying the medical costs of the uninsured.
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