Posted on 04/23/2010 11:58:03 AM PDT by tutstar
By Carol Gentry and Jim Saunders 4/23/2010 © Health News Florida Only hours after the Florida House and Senate voted to “opt out” of the new federal health law, the top U.S. health official said Thursday night that will not be permitted.
Without mentioning any particular state or going into detail, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that state and local officials can vent all they want about a so-called “federal takeover” of health care. But they cannot deny their citizens access to its benefits or requirements, she told the Association of Health Care Journalists. Our eAlert subscribers read it first! “They may want to opt out, but they don’t get to opt out all of their citizens who want and need health care,” Sebelius said.
Florida has an estimated 4 million uninsured, most of whom will be covered when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) takes full effect in 2014.
At least 30 states have passed state constitutional amendment legislation similar to that approved by the Florida Legislature, according to theNational Conference of State Legislatures.
Sebelius said the backlash against the ACA has been ginned up by “misinformation,” much of it deliberate. Thus HHS will be setting up an Internet site to answer frequent questions and a toll-free helpline, similar to that operated for Medicare beneficiaries. HHS staff members present at the conference said they hope to have the Internet site up by July 1 and the help desk soon after.
The opt-out measure passed in the House and Senate on Thursday, a proposed amendment to the Florida Constitution, will go before voters in the November election. The proposal says, in part, that Floridians may not be forced by law to "participate in any health-care system.''
Dividing along almost strict party lines, the House passed the proposal 74-42, and the Senate followed in a 26-11 vote. Republican supporters say the issue is a matter of freedom and preventing encroachment by the federal government.
"The fact that we have to have this debate in the United States of America is troubling and bizarre,'' said Rep. Mike Horner, R-Kissimmee.
Democrats said the proposal's supporters have spent more time trying to prevent expansion of coverage than they have on solving the state's health-care problems.
"That is the folly of this moment, and this constitutional amendment is misguided in the extreme,'' said Sen. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach.
The measure is primarily aimed at part of the health-reform law that will eventually require people to buy health insurance or face financial penalties --- a concept known as the "individual mandate.'' Republicans in Tallahassee and other state capitals have launched numerous efforts to allow people to opt out of the requirement since the Democrat-controlled Congress passed it last month.
At the same time, Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum has launched a separate legal battle challenging the federal law. That lawsuit is pending.
Democrats have repeatedly argued that the legislative attempts to allow Floridians to opt out of the federal law would violate the so-called "supremacy clause'' of the U.S. Constitution. That clause generally gives precedence to federal law over state law when conflicts occur.
"We should not step on the United States Constitution, and that's what you are doing now,'' Davie Democrat Martin Kiar said during the House debate today.
But supporters dispute that the supremacy clause bars the state from allowing people to avoid the individual mandate. "The supremacy clause does not say the feds control the states,'' Melbourne Republican Ritch Workman said.
Supporters also say that even if the proposal ultimately is found to violate the supremacy clause, it would remain in place to protect Floridians from future state health-care requirements. As an example, it would prevent Florida from approving coverage requirements similar to those in Massachusetts.
More broadly, however, Palm Harbor Republican Peter Nehr said it is the Legislature's duty to "step up and reassert the rights of Floridians.''
ping
Sebelius and Hussein despise the Constitution.
They need to learn to read.
Run up the Stars and Bars!
Only the union goons can opt out!
Then there’s that pesky piece of paper that says in Ammendment #10
“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.”
States can’t defy federal laws? But if Philadelphia wants to deny its citizens the RKBA as written in plain English in 2A....why that’s a horse of a different color!
No, you DemTARDs crapped all over the United States Constitution and we are taking our country back, one step at a time.
Looks like we’re heading for a showdown.
It’s gonna get messy.
It would be better if they just let the states go that wanted to not be a part of this whole load of collectivist crap,
but it’s gonna get messy, because they won’t.
Who the hell is Sebelius to say crap like this? The U.S. Constitution does not give the Feds the authority to do their commie “healthcare” gig. Therefore, it is up to the states to decide whether they want to participate or not. Da b*tch needs to go back to school and take a few civics classes.
There shouldn’t even be a Secretary of Health and Human Services,nor an EPA,nor a Labor Department,nor a Department of Education,nor a long list of federal usurpation of state,local, and private authority.
The Feds come into states all the time and bully pulpit about their own favorite grinding axes. Why can’t the states who find Bummercare onerous return the favor — support politicking for candidates, nationwide, which will first starve then reform then repeal the beast?
Fla is trying to give its citizens the ability to choose, not take it away. Idiot.
Selibus can say anything she wants, this is states vs feds and the courts are going to decide.
We should not step on the United States Constitution, and that’s what you are doing now,’’ Davie Democrat Martin Kiar said during the House debate today.
Where was this clown before?
What's it like getting up every workday, figuring out how to trick people into enslaving themselves?
Expect no consistency on their
support of defiance or compliance.
The only consistency they follow is if it
furthers the goals of the “anointed”.
Ping.
Well, I guess the Supreme Court can go home now, Sebelius has ruled.
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