by Alan Portner
DC Public Policy Examiner
WASHINGTON ( February 2, 2010) Conservative Republicans across the nation moved Monday to pass legislation which guarantees citizen's health insurance premiums will continue to skyrocket. In a coordinated move, designed to delay and defeat any federal action, Conservative state legislators in thirty states introduced bills which would exempt their constituents from any future federal mandate requiring all persons buy health insurance.
Move to prohibit federal mandates:
Republican Senators in Virginia sponsored and passed not one, but three bills which would prohibit most mandates to the states by the federal government. Senator Fred Quayle (R- Suffolk) attempted to frame the measure. "It is a bill that attempts to reinforce the Constitution of the United States ... if they can mandate this then they can mandate anything," he said.
Meanwhile over in the Virginia House, Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-13th District) has filed the “Virginia Health Care Freedom Act” (HB 10), which would “protect an individual’s right and power to participate or decline to participate in a health care system or plan,” according to a summary of the bill.
Marshall compares Congressional majority to the Mob:
“Mobsters used to offer ‘protection’ to business owners, so when Congress says that if individuals don’t become customers of businesses that contribute to them, to me that crosses the line,” Marshall said. “For me, it is hard to distinguish what is going on in Washington, D.C., from criminal activity.”
Mechanism of insurance:
This conservative attack flies in the face of the very notion of any kind of insurance. One expert, Henry Meyerding of the Los Angles area, said “Health insurance is based upon the principle of "shared risk." If most people are basically healthy, then they can afford to pay into a pool of money that is sufficiently large to pay for the big expenses incurred by the few people who are really ill.”
Rhetorical devices likening opposition leaders to members of criminal gangs are great for sound bites, but are counterproductive to solving basic challenges.
Legal scholars say:
Constitutional scholars, who chose not to be named for this report, say that the legislation is designed to delay and provoke court action, but will be clearly trumped by the preamble of the U.S. Constitution which clearly allows the federal government to take actions that “promote the general welfare” of the people and Article VI of the Constitution, the Supremacy clause .
Historical perspective:
An article in the Huffington Post takes a look at the gridlock which infects the legislative process:
According to Sarah A. Binder's book Stalemate: Causes and Consequences of Legislative Gridlock, "James Madison bequeathed to us a political system designed not to work, a government of sharply limited powers.'' Binder goes on to write the Framers had a profound appreciation for gridlock, designing a system that would in fact guarantee gridlock.
Other legal scholars point out that the gridlock component of the Constitution is there to hold legislators accountable to the changing mood of voters over public policy. "Madison could not have envisioned a system which has become so complex that permitting of something as simple as a single, offshore wind turbine farm could take as long as ten years," they said.
Al Portner is a former daily newspaper editor and publisher in seven states and author of the forthcoming “Mark Twain and the Tale of Grant’s Memoir.” Portner is also the proprietor of The Assignment Desk, LLC and provides writers, editors, and photographers for numerous kinds of contract projects from proposals and speeches to public relations and journalism. Reach him at alanportner@gmail.com.
For more information:Shared responsibility … shared risk
States seek to prohibit mandates
Conservative lawmakers reject idea of insurance mandates
Virginia Senate approves measure to prohibit individual mandates
Virginia delegate likens Congress to the Mob
Bill Lucey on Gridlock
The notion of insurance and shared risk
The Supremacy Clause:
Comments
The Supreme Court rejected the argument that Congress could regulate whenever it would advance the "general welfare" in United States v. Morrison (2000) and United States v. Lopez (1995).
These cases say Congress has to invoke a specific power enumerated in the Constitution, like the power to regulate interstate commerce, and that it lacks a general police power (i.e., a power to regulate whenever doing so would advance the general welfare).
The fact that a law seems "nifty" is not enough, according to five sitting Supreme Court justices. It has to be based on something more concrete, like a connection to interstate commerce.
Alan:
I do not think it inappropriate or even incorrect to call what Congress is doing "criminal." In the early 1990s, House Majority Whip Tony Coelho (D-CA) stated explicitly that they were done playing nice with business. What he told them was that they'd better contribute to Democrats or Democrats would target them in future legislation.
Is that a good description of a protection racket or what? That thug mentality has spread into practically everything the Democrats do, arrogating to themselves the right to enact criminal penalites to force people to buy into a healthcare plan they would otherwise never touch. Incredible!
The fact that the Democrats had to allow some of their fellow Democrats to opt out of the healthcare bill's onerous requirements seems to be demonstration enough that even Democrats think the bill is awful.
But they have no problem putting a gun to our collective heads to collect the monies necessary to implement it.
That is criminal!
If the president signs the bill with the federal mandate in it, he may be breaking the law when he does. The whole bill could be thrown out when it is overturned by the Supreme Court in a 5-4. The left should think before they jump or what they might face could seem like nothing compared to the actions of the states.
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