Virginia became the first state this week to pass a state constitutional amendment banning a federal mandate on health insurance.These legislative roadblocks to the federal government have been filed or proposed in 38 other states. This advance on the state constitutional front prior to Congress possibly voting on the Senate Health Care scheme version, and Obama signing it, means Obamacare will end up before the Supreme Court. These are the same measures that states like Colorado are taking on the front for medical marijuana. And the outcome is far from certain. It hasn’t been tested. If a state is willing to go to the length of amending its own constitution, exactly what is the threshold the federal government must meet to override it? Just because it says so?
This isn’t about agreeing which side of the road we all should drive on, or food safety for products your state is shipping on trucks and sending all over the country and the world. This is about government control of health care, and collectivist zealots who have no other argument for their version of legislation other than “Unless everybody joins, it won’t work.” That’s why it won’t. This is the first shot across the Health Care bow in the final battle. More states are sure to move now. Health Care won’t get its March 18 vote. Obama won’t get his Easter surprise. Pelosi is losing her grip. More trouble for Democrats, as Virginia, a state Obama was the first Democat to win in 44 years, lost 21 of 38 Democrat state representatives in the vote. And have I mentioned lately Obama’s approval is at an all time low?
Happy Spring!
“If a state is willing to go to the length of amending its own constitution, exactly what is the threshold the federal government must meet to override it? Just because it says so?”
No, not because it says so…because the Constitution says so. And I quote;
“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States”.
The Supreme Court has interpreted the “general Welfare” part of that very broadly, granting Congress great discretion in doing so.
A Healthcare mandate will not be found unconstitutional.
Yes, yes, I know all about you “Section 8’ers” who go about preaching Article 1, Section 8 as if it is the pre-eminent clause of the constitution.
Thomas Jefferson had an important rule of interpretation that went like this: If any interpretation of any one part of the Constitution would in effect negate the need for rest of the document, that interpretation is incorrect.
Section 8’ers would like to negate the 10th amendment, and deny that the federal powers they are seeking don’t have to be specifically enumerated, but they do. And, in most ways, its still held up today. Contrary to the above declaration.
The Federal Government may refuse to grant highway funds for states that don’t have helmet laws, but states like NH and KS refuse anyway. Nothing the federal government can really do except withhold money. Same with seat belt laws. And car insurance. States like Ohio offer opt-out procedures, contrary to federal regulations.
The point of the article was, if a state says “keep your money”, the status quo is there’s nothing much the federal government can do.
What happens – if the health care bill pans out as well for the rest of us as I think it will – is a bloodbath in the Virginia statehouse. It’s all good.
Tenther.
From The Boston Globe 3/08/2010;
The federal law would take precedence over the state measures because it is a form of taxation, according to Yale law professor Jack Balkin, who recently wrote about the matter in the New England Journal of Medicine. He said it is appropriate under Washington’s authority to regulate interstate commerce, or the provision that enable the federal government to enact measures for the “general welfare’’ of the country.
The mandate is a tax because people would be paying a penalty only if they don’t have health insurance, just as they pay a penalty for failing to file taxes, Balkin said in the article.
State laws like Virginia’s proposal, Balkin said in an e-mail, “would be unenforceable unless federal health care legislation specifically provides for an opt out; it currently does not.’’
Crowley,
It really doesn’t matter what I think about Section 8. I’m just stating facts about how it has historically been interpreted. And you’re smart enough to know that it wouldn’t take a genius to make a very compelling case for a health insurance mandate under the “general welfare” precedent.
Yes, yes, I’m sure an idiot savant could make an argument. Not a sane one, but an argument nonetheless.
And in Virginia it is NOT a “state law”. It is a Constitutional amendment. Big difference. Good luck.
Many places in the law, the United States is defined as “the district of columbia, it’s territories, and military bases”. No where in the constitution does it say the federal government has any responsibility for the welfare of individual citizens.