Posted on 06/30/2009 3:10:12 AM PDT by Man50D
Voters in Arizona will decide next year whether residents will be subject to mandates in the pending health care reform that President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are promoting.
At least five other states – Indiana, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota and Wyoming – have considered proposals to take pre-emptive action against the pending federal mandates, but those proposals have either not made it out of committee, failed to get enough votes from one side of the legislature, or are still being crafted.
Only the Arizona Legislature introduced an initiative (HCR2014), which if passed, would amend the state constitution to codify that no resident would be required to participate in any public health care option. Arizonans will vote on the initiative in November 2010.
“HCR2014 is proactive and will protect patients’ fundamental rights,” Arizona State Rep. Nancy Barto, a Republican, said in a statement. “We are a front-line battle state to stop the momentum of this powerful government takeover of your health care decisions. Health care by lobbyists thwarts your rights and can be stopped here.”
The main issue is the core of the Obama health plan – a government run or “public option” – to compete with private health insurers. Some state lawmakers fear such legislation would force residents to buy into the public plan.
“The eyes of the nation will be on Arizona next year to see what happens,” Christie Herrera, director of the Health and Human Services Taskforce with the American Legislative Exchange Council, told CNSNews.com. “If this succeeds in Arizona, other states will take notice and push harder.”
The Obama administration insists that the public option will provide another choice for Americans who are not insured or are unhappy with their current insurance and will force private companies to be more competitive.
Critics of the plan say private firms could not compete with a public option – with unlimited government resources – and thus would go out of business, leaving what is tantamount to a single-payer system in place.
What happens in Arizona could spur other states to pass similar laws or constitutional amendments, said Wisconsin State Rep. Lea Vukmir, a Republican, who sponsored similar legislation in 2008 that passed the House but failed in the Senate.
If the Obama administration’s “public option” becomes law before Arizonans vote in November 2010, their initiative would still allow the state the challenge the Obama plan.
Vukmir said that the Obama proposal could be unconstitutional, under the Tenth Amendment, which states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
“I’m a strong believer in the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment,” Vukmir told CNSNews.com. “The Tenth Amendment has been eroded by Congress and the Supreme Court for decades. We have to ask, does the Tenth Amendment have any meaning? We are supposed to have strong state governments and a weak central government. That has eroded away.”
Georgia State Sen. Judson Hill, a Republican, said that the Obama plan would put a big strain on state budgets and told CNSNews.com that he would be interested in introducing similar legislation in the Georgia state house.
Medicaid and S-CHIP payments to states already make cutting costs untenable for states in lieu of a benefit cut or tax hike, Hill said.
He has introduced legislation to use state medical grants to go directly to patients as a sort of medical scholarship. (S-CHIP is the acronym for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, run by the federal Health and Human Services, which provides matching funds to states that provide expanded health insurance programs for families with children in low- to moderate-income brackets.)
“I call them federal crack dollars,” said Hill. “States get addicted to health dollars sent by the U.S. government.”
Arizona’s Health Care Freedom Act, firstly, establishes the right of state residents to spend their own money to seek and receive health care and, secondly, the right to choose not to participate in any health care system of any type.
An advocacy group was started to campaign for the amendment.
“Protecting the rights of individuals to be in control of their health and health care must be a fundamental component of health care reform, so the Arizona legislature is to be congratulated for giving all Americans the opportunity to make certain our voices are heard,” said Dr. Eric Novack, chairman of the group Arizonans for Health Care Reform.
Proposals to take pre-emptive action against the pending federal mandates,Good idea vote me in.
Thye need a new Senator in Arizona too.
In California, our legislature is waiting to see what the Feds offer then they will add 50 percent more to it so that California can be different
An interesting concept. As written an employee could out out of Medicare. But what does that really mean? Would that person no longer have to pay medicaid taxes in Arizona? Would the IRS agree not to put leans on their assets for that? Would the courts and law officers of Arizona assist the IRS in collecting back medicare taxes?
Or does not participate mean “pay for and not use”. If so, big deal. Everyone already has that choice.
for the Federal government to directly challange the states in such a confrontational manner could easily lead to the breakup of the United States.
Would they take that risk? - I don’t believe it for a minute.
My take is it will all be done via additional witholding, tax credits and 1040 changes. Thus, what ever Arizona says will make no difference. FedGov will collect, rebate and credit people as they decide. Individual Arizona citizens will still be legally bound to comply with the tax code: all of it.
The provision enabling payment outside the system is good. The one allowing people to opt out will prove meaningless.
Other than that, I agree with your post.
A state can offset anything the Fed does in that respect with revenues collected and sent sent to the Federal government, and forcing the issue past that leads to the same risk.
I would enjoy the challenge of crafting the architecture of such planning.
but thats just me...
The problem, as I see it, is that the states probably have no balls.
You are right. I forget about the ability of the states to counter Fed taxes because I live in a state with no income tax. State income tax can credit back for fed taxes, etc. In my state it would be much harder for the state to counteract weird Fed rules. Across the river in Oregon it would be relatively easy: they now have income taxes up to 11%
g
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