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.''
Where were all you opponents of this sort of thing when the smoking ban debates were raging?
A well-meaning but misguided fellow. Not much help to the cause, in the end, because his “rational egoism” undercuts the broader, deeper moral outrage that has driven all the great freedom movements of history. Atlas almost never shrugs without a lot of help from those people of faith he so despises. When he has done so, you get the French Revolution. Sad outcome for a fellow with a fine Scottish name.
Some of us are looking into a class action to provide an opt out for prolife people of faith. There is a sequence that could not only get us there, but could deal a body blow to the broader enforcement of Obamacare.
First problem with legislative cases is always standing. Generally, taxpayers don’t have it, because the individual impact of a given policy is viewed as too small an injury to upset the separation of the political and judicial domains. Don’t like a law, vote the bums out.
However, where the taxpayer is being coerced into establishing a specific religion against his will, and where such establishment is effectively grounded in the congressional power to tax, getting standing becomes much more likely.
Then the question becomes one of equal protection. If the Amish can opt out as conscientious objectors due to their moral disapproval of using non-church insurance, how much more does the prolifer have grounds for conscientious objection to having the government use their tax dollars to fund what they sincerely believe to be murder?
Now conscientious objection is not a path for the faint of heart. The court will look at the depth of one’s commitment to the principle espoused. A mere preference will not suffice; objection must be an unalterable conviction. For example, eating three meals a day is a preference. Breathing is a conviction. Those not willing to go to the wall for the unborn should not be plaintiffs in this case.
Nevertheless, if we could get this to fly, think of the implications. Over half the country is professedly prolife. If some case like this serves as the tip of the spear, and we can get break open an opt out for half the country, it could fatally hemorrhage Obamacare funding, and all quite legally.
I am building a list of people who would be interested in pursuing this route, so feel free to contact me if you are interested.
I don’t follow you about breathing being a conviction since breathing is involuntary. When you say going to the wall for the unborn, do you mean prolife against abortion with no exceptions?
What is that supposed to mean?
Well, yes, involuntary really is not a bad way to describe it. If you have a conviction, that means it is so strong in your mind and heart you would accept any adverse consequence to yourself rather than surrender on the point of contention. I just use breathing as a metaphor to show that a conviction is not viewed as optional by the person who holds it.
As for being against abortion with no exceptions, the court would probably view exceptions as a severe weakening of the conviction. The moral reasoning of the conscientious objector who wins is typically rigorously complete and self-consistent. That’s where the strength of credibility comes from. The judge wants to know that you have thought your conviction through and really own and understand it.
Therefore, if you argue you are against funding abortion because it is murder, but find it acceptable to murder some unborn children because they were conceived through rape or incest, the judge will likely see that as a huge gap in your moral reasoning; you must define your moral objection consistently and apply that definition consistently. If your premise is that protectable human life begins at conception, you will have to defend that premise regardless of the circumstances leading to conception.
Otherwise, your opposition to abortion will begin to look more like a loosely held patchwork of preferences rather than a logically unified and unalterable conviction. If some circumstances make the murder of innocent children acceptable, your conviction is, by definition, not consistent, not unalterable, and therefore not a good candidate for conscientious objection.
Powder..patch..ball FIRE!
Google is your friend..
Is not..
Pregnancy is a leading cause of obesity in women aged 19 to 45.
That can be our Flag again!
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