This week the battle in health care reform is centering in on Florida. Earlier this week the focus was in Virginia where a federal judge ruled that mandating health insurance was unconstitutional. Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum released a statement saying that the state will move forward with arguments in a Pensacola courtroom.

According to ABC News, the 20 states that are involved in the Florida lawsuit maintain that health care reform will put additional burden on their stretched budgets. However, research from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that the federal government would pay for more than 95% of the added costs and states would only be responsible for $21.2 billion.

US District Judge Roger Vinson is expected to rule on the expansion of Medicaid, according to The News Service Florida. “The implementation of this law could add more than 1.9 million Floridians to the Medicaid program, a tremendous financial burden on our state at a time when our budget has no room for extra expenses,” McCollum said, according to reports. “As our lawsuit heads to oral argument this Thursday, I am hopeful we will obtain a favorable decision that will strike down the individual mandate and also halt the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars required to be spent by states to implement the Affordable Care Act.”

Most experts believe the issue will eventually be ruled on by the US Supreme Court. US District Judge Henry E. Hudson struck down the push to force people to have insurance. “The unchecked expansion of congressional power to the limits suggested by the Minimum Essential Coverage Provision would invite unbridled exercise of federal police powers,” Hudson wrote, according to The News Service Florida. “At its core, this dispute is not simply about regulating the business of insurance – or crafting a scheme of universal health insurance coverage – it’s about an individual’s right to choose to participate.”  The states involved in the suit are Florida, South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Louisiana, Alabama, Michigan, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Washington, Idaho, South Dakota, Indiana, North Dakota, Mississippi, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Alaska, according to The Washington Post.