Free Republic

Contrary to popular myth, states are under no obligation to expand Medicaid or create a health insurance exchange, and they should refuse to do either. That from Michael F. Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute. He argues that the costs to the private sector will be significant if states agree to create exchanges.

President Obama has won reelection, and his administration has asked state officials to decide by Friday, November 16, whether their state will create one of Obamacare’s health-insurance “exchanges.” States also have to decide whether to implement the law’s massive expansion of Medicaid. The correct answer to both questions remains a resounding no. State-created exchanges mean higher taxes, fewer jobs, and less protection of religious freedom. States are better off defaulting to a federal exchange. The Medicaid expansion is likewise too costly and risky a proposition. Republican Governors Association chairman Bob McDonnell (R.,Va.) agrees, and has announced that Virginia will implement...

(CNSNews.com) – Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said recently that--"especially after last term"--he does not know if he is confident the Constitution can be restored to its original meaning. He likened his own efforts to do so to the character "Frodo" in the Lord of the Rings, who fights the good fight not certain he will win. While discussing his new book Reading Law at Stanford University on Oct. 19, the Hoover Institution’s Peter Robinson quoted to Scalia a passage from Scalia's book, Reading Law: "Originalism does not always provide an easy answer, or even a clear one. Originalism is...

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The slogan goes, "Don't Mess With Texas." But with President Barack Obama in the White House a more appropriate cry might be: "Try it and we'll sue." The Texas attorney general's office has filed 24 lawsuits against the federal government since Obama took office — litigation that has cost the state $2.58 million and more than 14,113 hours spent by staff and state lawyers working those cases. ....Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said the costs are worth it, calling the litigation "a fight against the unprecedented ideology coming from the Obama administration." In an interview, he...

I wish the Republican Platform was binding. Why? Because the GOP, for all intents and purposes, has just proposed to eliminate the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Health and Human Services, along with a host of other government programs, agencies, and departments.More specifically, they endorsed the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which means they put themselves on record in favor of getting rid of all federal spending and intervention that is inconsistent with the Founding Fathers’ vision of a...

There recently appeared an article at Salon critical of the idea of repealing the 17th Amendment. In it, author Alex Seitz-Wald explains how the desire to return the selection of U.S. Senators back over to the state legislatures, as opposed to direct election now, developed, and why it would be harmful if tried. In this piece, the first of two on the subject, I’ll summarize the argument, argue the benefits of repealing this amendment, and correct a few points made by Seitz-Wald. His overview is that the idea had been a “hobbyhorse of the fringe right” for quite some time,...

The U.S. Government is suing New Mexico for perceived damages in a groundwater case, and the prize is control of the state's water. In May 2011 we learned that the EPA was beginning to change the way America's waters are controlled, and that control was to be extended to your ponds and puddles. Happening now in New Mexico: The lawyers told the committee [New Mexico Legislature Water and Natural Resources] the U.S. government is apparently trying to take over legal management of the state's water supply. The federal government has asserted claims for damages to groundwater in a natural resource...

Here’s the blueprint for how the states can eviscerate three central pillars of Obamacare, crippling it, and set the stage for replacing it if Mitt Romney takes the White House and the GOP takes the Senate this November. Many are focusing on whether Congress will refuse to fund all the provisions of Obamacare that require federal money. While very important, this is only one barrel of what must be a double-barreled approach. The other is what states can do to dismantle Obamacare. And if we pursue both of these simultaneously, we can defeat Obamacare and safeguard the greatest healthcare system...

Editor's Note: This column was coauthor by Ken Klukowski, a columnist at Breitbart.comHere’s the blueprint for how the states can reject three central pillars of Obamacare and set the stage for replacing it, if Mitt Romney takes the White House and the GOP takes the Senate this November. Two reasons compel dismantling Obamacare. First is restoring individual liberty by empowering states against the national government and citizens against both. Second is recognizing that free markets outperform centrally-planned markets, so private-sector healthcare will better serve Americans than government-controlled Obamacare ever could. However disappointing the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Obamacare’s individual...

Until the late 1980s, many, if not most, states and countries did not have defined academic "content standards." Instead they had a curriculum, a program of study that described what should be taught and often how in every grade. Some programs were regional, others were state or nationwide, and some even were local to a school or a district. In some states they were mandatory; in others they were advisory in nature. In the late 1980s — in part as the result of global competition, of recognition that different schools offered programs of widely differing quality and of the 1984...

Expecting to extend quality health care access to millions of Americans by pressing them into the existing Medicaid system is a little like expecting to win the Indy 500 in a 1965 Chevy Corvair. It’s just not the right tool for the job. A fundamental flaw in the Obama administration’s government health care plan is that Medicaid is already on the brink of failure. Dumping millions more people into the Medicaid mix will not save it, will not cut any costs and will not improve overall access to quality care. In Texas, we have no interest in following the federal...

Governor Rick Perry said on Monday Texas will not implement an expansion of the Medicaid program or create a health insurance exchange, placing the state with the highest percentage of people without insurance outside key parts of President Barack Obama's signature law. The announcement makes Texas the most populous state that has rejected the provisions. Some 6.2 million people are without health insurance in Texas, or 24.6 percent of the state population, the highest percentage in the nation. California has more people without insurance but a lower percentage. Perry joined fellow Republican governors of Florida, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Mississippi and...

We need the 2010 tea party sweeps to continue in 2012 and beyond!! We need to increase the conservative majority in the house, take the majority in the senate and continue sweeping conservatives into as many state and local offices as we possibly can all across this great land!! No matter who wins the presidency, we're going to need the states and the people and FR to hold their feet to the fire!! Block the feds!! Demand our states reassert their tenth amendment rights and powers and push the feds the hell OUT of our state and local business!! And...

“I disagree with the Supreme Court’s ruling and believe that state governments were intended to serve as a check on the federal government,” said Ritze, R-Broken Arrow. “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which is better known as ObamaCare, is an example of federal overreach and my legislation will authorize the state to resist it and ban the enforcement of it.”

We need the 2010 tea party sweeps to continue in 2012 and beyond!! We need to increase the conservative majority in the house, take the majority in the senate and continue sweeping conservatives into as many state and local offices as we possibly can all across this great land!! No matter who wins the presidency, we're going to need the states and the people and FR to hold their feet to the fire!! Block the feds!! Demand our states reassert their tenth amendment rights and powers and push the feds the hell OUT of our state and local business!! And...

PHOENIX -- Voters could get the right to overrule federal laws and mandates under the terms of an initiative filed late Thursday. The Arizona Constitution already says the federal Constitution "is the supreme law of the land." This measure, if approved in November, it would add language saying that federal document may not be violated by any government -- including the federal government. More to the point, it would allow Arizonans "to reject any federal action that they determine violates the United States Constitution." That could occur through a vote of the state House and Senate with consent of the...

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Fear Obamacare is impossible to repeal? Think again! Here's the surprisingly easy path to dumping this law.

....Under the health care law, by 2014, states must implement a health insurance exchange, or a Web-based marketplace where people can shop for insurance, or defer to a federal program. States need to submit plans to the federal government by Nov. 16 that demonstrate their readiness to launch health exchanges. ....."We care about having a health care safety net for the vulnerable Floridians," Scott said on Fox. "But this is an expansion that just doesn't make any sense." ....."Hopefully we won't have to worry about it because by November we're going to have a new president-elect who is going to...

Despite Thursday’s controversial Supreme Court ruling on ObamaCare, states retain the right and authority to nullify the healthcare law, and the state of Missouri, among many others, is undertaking efforts to do just that. According to Missouri legislators, regardless of the High Court's ruling, Missouri voters will maintain the opportunity to vote for or against the so-called Affordable Healthcare Act in November. And Missouri is not the only state seeking to circumvent ObamaCare. Yahoo News reports, “Several Republican governors, including both Jindal and McDonnell, have put off setting up the exchanges in the hope that the law will be repealed...