At least 14 states' attorneys general and/or governors have now filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the new national health care provision which requires mandatory membership of everyone in the country.  

States are also suing the federal government because the national health care law will not only add at least 15 million more low-income people to the Medicaid program,  but will cost the states millions more to administer the new program and insureds.

Even though the state of California will be hit hardest of any of the 50 states by the mandates in the new law, California probably won't be joining in the legal actions being undertaken by the other states.

Take a wild guess why.   California attorney general Jerry Brown is a Democrat, who is also running for California governor.  In Brown's brain, all this lawsuit stuff  has nothing do with the fact that states can't possibly afford national health care mandates,  it's just Republicans being petty.

"We'll just have to see how it goes, but I do think that the politics of this have really been horrible," Brown said during a visit to KCRA 3. "This is a big issue. It's complicated. The bill is obviously not perfect. But I would like to see both parties trying to fix it. And let the Republicans say, 'OK, we have some other ideas here.' Basically, it just obstructionism, and it's dividing our country when we really need at this point in our history to pull together and forge a common purpose."

"Many Californians share the view of this panel-- that this is a great expansion of government in general and the greatest intrusion into personal liberties and states rights we have seen in many decades," said Senate Minority Leader Dennis Hollingsworth, R-Murrieta (Riverside County), said in kicking off a press conference where the term "Obamacare" was almost exclusively used to describe the bill."

"For California, with a $20 billion budget deficit, the extra load will cost at least an additional $2 billion to $3 billion annually, said Toby Douglas, chief deputy director for California's Medicaid (Medi-Cal) health care programs. He said the overhaul is currently projected to add 1.6 million people to the 7 million enrolled in his state's program.

"We face enormous challenges just sustaining our existing program," said Douglas in a March 18 telephone interview. "I just don't see states having the capacity to move forward on these changes in this environment."

The numbers of new enrollees because of the overhaul are based on current estimates and may be low, he said in an e-mail. The estimate doesn't incorporate the growth that the program, known in California as Medi-Cal, may experience even without the new federal legislation, he said.

Medi-Cal recipients are projected to increase 4.3 percent to 7.3 million in fiscal 2011, which begins July 1, spokesman Norman Williams said.

Douglas's state is battling in court over Medicaid spending cuts it tried to make this fiscal year. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on March 3 barred California from reducing payments to doctors and hospitals, saying federal law required states to maintain "equal access to basic health care" for the poor. California is appealing the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.