{"id":265669,"date":"2010-02-02T12:53:49","date_gmt":"2010-02-02T17:53:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.szone.us\/f95\/outside-beltway-states-consider-prohibiting-individual-mandate-38934\/"},"modified":"2010-02-02T12:53:49","modified_gmt":"2010-02-02T17:53:49","slug":"outside-the-beltway-states-consider-prohibiting-the-individual-mandate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/265669","title":{"rendered":"Outside the Beltway: States Consider Prohibiting the Individual Mandate"},"content":{"rendered":"
On 02.02.10 06:17 AM posted by Brandon Stewart<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Washington Post <\/i>reports<\/a> that the Virginia Senate passed a measure yesterday that that would prohibit the imposition of the individual mandate \u0097 a feature of both the current House and Senate health care bills. Besides being the first state to adopt such a measure, it is especially remarkable coming out of the Virginia Senate, where Democrats hold the majority. As The Post reports, the measure came “less than a week after President Obama implored Democrats in Washington not to abandon their health-care efforts” during the State of the Union.<\/p>\n

According to another story in the*Associated Press, an increasing number of state legislatures<\/a> have begun considering such legislation. The individual mandate \u0097 which would force all U.S. citizens to purchase health insurance \u0097 has outraged many Americans and has led to a public backlash against the proposal.<\/p>\n

According to the AP:<\/p>\n

Lawmakers in 35 states have filed or proposed amendments to their state constitutions*or statutes rejecting health insurance mandates, according to the*American Legislative Exchange Council, a nonprofit group that promotes limited government that is helping coordinate the efforts. Many of those proposals are targeted for the November ballot, assuring that health care remains a hot topic as hundreds of federal and state lawmakers face re-election.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Supporters of the state measures portray them as a way of defending individual rights and state sovereignty, asserting that the federal government has no authority to tell states and their citizens to buy health insurance.<\/p>\n

“I think the alarm bell has been rung,” said*Clint Bolick, the constitutional litigation director at the*Goldwater Institute*in Phoenix, which helped craft an Arizona amendment on this November’s ballot that has been used as a model in other states.<\/p>\n

“These amendments are a way to manifest grass roots opposition” to*federal health insurance*mandates, Bolick said. “They kind of have a life of their own at this point. So while some of the pressure may be off, I think that this movement has legs.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There is some discussion as to whether these measures, even if adopted, will have much effect if Congress manages to pass a health care bill with an individual mandate.<\/p>\n

“They are merely symbolic gestures,” said Michael Dorf, a*constitutional law professor*at Cornell University. “If this Congress were to pass an individual mandate, and if it is constitutional \u0097 which I believe it is \u0097 the express rule under the*supremacy clause*(of the*U.S. Constitution) is that the federal law prevails.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

However, as Professor Dorf points out, whether these measures are symbolic or not hinges on whether a federal mandate is Constitutional, something about which Heritage has serious<\/a> doubts<\/a>. Regardless of whether these measures turn out to have teeth or not, they are yet another sign of the anger many Americans have towards Obamacare. A sign that the President and Congressional leaders would be wise not to ignore.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/02\/02\/…idual-mandate\/<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 02.02.10 06:17 AM posted by Brandon Stewart The Washington Post reports that the Virginia Senate passed a measure yesterday that that would prohibit the imposition of the individual mandate \u0097 a feature of both the current House and Senate health care bills. Besides being the first state to adopt such a measure, it is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-265669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265669\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}