Posted on 03/24/2010 3:16:20 PM PDT by CitizenM
RICHMOND - Governor Bob McDonnell (R) signed Virginia’s opposition to the Democratically led federal health care reform bill Wednesday afternoon.
The governor put his signature on the Virginia Health Care Freedom Act at a ceremony in Richmond. State Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, State Senators Steve Martin, Fred Quayle, Jill Vogel, Delegate Bob Marshall, and Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources Dr. Bill Hazel all took part in the event.
“We all agree that we must expand access to quality health care and reduce costs for all Virginians. However, that should not be accomplished through an unprecedented federal mandate on individuals that we believe violates the U.S. Constitution. The Virginia Healthcare Freedom Act sets as the policy of the Commonwealth that no individual, with several specific exceptions, can be required to purchase health insurance coverage. The Act was passed with bipartisan support, in sharp contrast to the narrow straight line partisan vote that enacted the federal health care bill on Sunday night. Virginia’s Healthcare Freedom Act received the votes of leading Democratic Senators, as well as the Democratic House Minority Leader. It was an important step to sign this bipartisan legislation today,” McDonnell said in a news release.
“The states have long been leaders in identifying and implementing innovative policies to expand access to, and improve the affordability of, healthcare coverage. Virginia will continue to play that important role. We will do this through promoting incentives for the purchase of long term care and individual medical savings accounts, focusing on preventative health and combating obesity, studying our medical delivery systems with the objective of reforming them to work better for our citizens, expanding free clinics and aggressively finding new ways to reduce the cost of our Medicaid system, which has already grown 1600% in the past 25 years. There are fiscally responsible ways by which we can reform healthcare and expand quality coverage that do not involve the forcing of unfunded and unprecedented mandates onto individuals and states, and the unsustainable growing of our national debt,” the Governor added.
Cuccinelli said, “Virginians spoke loudly and clearly in rallies, in town halls, and at the ballot box about their opposition to the new federal health care law. The governor and both Democrats and Republicans in the General Assembly heard them, and as a result, the Virginia Health Care Freedom Act is being signed today.”
signed into law finally. Go VA!
Woohoo! May Texas be next followed by 48 others (ok, probably not CA or FL or NY).
Congrats!
With all the seniors in FL, why not there?
Guess I have to forigive Virginia for voting for Obama, Webb and Warner.
Don’t forget Maryland.... Bah.
Awesome job by VA. McDonnell abd Ken C are awesome.
Meanwhile in FL, Charlie Crist frets from his tanning bed on taxes on tanning bed treatments.
The only thing worse than Crist is McCain & Graham-nesty.
God Bless Virginia!
Yes! Screw Fauxbama and his party of thieves.
Wow.
So the average guy/gal on the street in Virginia gets to decide which law (State or Federal) to follow?
What a mess the Democrats have created. I think I need to go to law school, as the lawyers will be tied up with this for decades.
What a waste of resources and effort.
Gov. Perry would have to call a special session to do it. The legislature doesn’t meet again until 2011.
When do I get one? :( (Totally left out — in more ways that one — in California.)
The poll looked about half and half. So, will FL or not?
Aww...but...don’t tell me he didn’t have the decency to allow the Democrat’s their cackling moment in the sun? Oh well..guess they’ll just have to share the spotlight with the news one state has already told them to go screw themselves.
Good for Virginia!
They filed suit, the poll is not the story there. Anyone can vote on it multiple times so it is not very reliable.
another reason to move to VA...
If you game this out to the extreme along 10th amendment lines, what happens if Virginia simply exempts Virginia citizens from the Federal Act and 13 other states follow suit? Then you set up the conflict between the Federal Government and the State Government, IRS and local law enforcement. Though it likely would never get to that point, you could in theory force it all the way to a confrontation could you not?
Have an army of IRS agents trying to get into a 58 year old woman’s house with State Troopers on the outside? What a visual for TV that would be.
Of course the other issue is the interstate commerce clause and insurance companies that do business in other states, the rise in premiums etc etc.
Is the tanning tax the first thing that would become an issue before it gets into the courts? This technically means Virginia tanning salons don’t have to pay the tanning tax? Then the IRS attempts to collect......etc etc?
Or am I completely off base?
Blame the double-dipping college idiots...
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