Posted on 12/22/2012 8:44:00 PM PST by Sark
With President Obama's triumph in November, many political observers sounded the death knell for the "full repeal" movement fighting against ObamaCare. Despite lingering controversy and general unpopularity, the president's victory and a large Democratic majority in the Senate made the law appear safe at last. Is it?
In a sense, it is. Full repeal almost certainly won't happen while President Obama is in office, and attempts to reform the law will struggle to gain traction as long as progressives keep their hold on the Senate. If the law won't be repealed before its true implementation in 2014, and if reform is almost as unlikely as repeal, what recourse is left for the law's opponents?
Well, there's still the lingering question of implementation. This massive law needs a lot of infrastructure in order to function as designed, but by far the most important element is its network of "health care exchanges."These "exchanges" are marketed as a conservative, market-based approach to providing the uninsured with health insurance coverage, but that description is far from reality.
In truth, each "exchange" will only feature government-regulated and approved coverage plans. The private insurance companies who offer plans in this supposed "marketplace" will receive generous federal subsidies to reduce the cost of insurance premiums for consumers. Does this sound like a conservative or market-based solution to health care reform? An exchange-in-name-only that features heavy federal regulation and extensive corporate welfare simply isn't a free market plan.
Those who drafted the law intended for each state to construct its own "exchange." Their purpose was two-fold: 1.) to create the appearance of state-based control and involvement and 2.) to reduce the burden on the federal Department of Health and Human Services. In reality, the states have very little leeway to tinker with the design or function of the "exchanges." Additionally, each state that agrees to start its own "exchange" also agrees to take on the costs of maintaining its day-to-day operations, which will cost tens of millions of dollars annually. The law's designers wanted the labor and expense of building and operating each "exchange" to fall on the states, not the federal government.
The concept of state involvement in these "exchanges" was always a mere facade, but it may have also been a critical mistake by ObamaCare's creators. These "exchanges" are the bedrock of ObamaCare, and they must be in place for the law to function properly. When the individual mandate goes into effect in 2014, Americans who do not receive insurance through their employer and who do not qualify for a federal program such as Medicare are meant to get it through the "exchanges."The "exchanges" are also the mechanism by which the federal government intends to disburse the subsidies to make health insurance affordable for the uninsured.
By refusing to set up an "exchange," a state places the heavy burden of getting one up and running by 2014 on the Department of Health and Human Services. How many states have joined the ObamaCare resistance? Two, three? Maybe four? No, a staggeringtwenty-six states have refused to set up their own "exchange." A majority of states have refused to collaborate with the federal government to implement the unpopular law. It is without question a stunning success for the grassroots resistance to ObamaCare.
Here's a list of states that have decided not to set one up: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. (A 27th state, Utah, set up an exchange that is intentionally non-compliant with federal regulations.)
Interestingly, some policy experts believe that an error made in drafting the actual text of the law may transform this state by state resistance into a mortal blow to ObamaCare. According to a strict reading of the law, the federal government cannot step in to create an "exchange" in a state that has refused to make one itself. That means no state "exchange" and no subsidies for the insurance companies, which removes the basic machinery at the heart of ObamaCare.
Without the "exchanges" or massive federal subsidies in place, the individual mandate and the guaranteed issue/community rating mandates on private insurance companies will be intolerable. The uproar caused by the crashing and burning of ObamaCare could force progressives back to the negotiating table on health care reform, providing conservatives with another chance to push for affordable, consumer-driven, patient-centered health care.
The federal bureaucracy has made it clear that they intend to overlook this mistake and to implement the "exchanges" from the federal level anyway, but the states can then sue the federal government for violating the text of the law. Once again, the fate of ObamaCare's most important provisions will end up in the hands of the judiciary. It's impossible to know how this battle will end, but the fight to resist and to repeal ObamaCare continues on.
No. The lawsuit will be in the federal courts and those have been corrupted thoroughly by Obama and his minions. We already know how this will end.
If The BFLAN can only get about half the people to vote for him and about half the states to join his medical plan - does that make him a half-@$$ed president?
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--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
live - free - republic
FUBO, you TREASONOUS POS
How about that, Obama leads the democrat party, and the GOP nominated the grandfather of Obamacare as their choice for President, for their party, and yet there are still people who won’t roll over for it.
I’ll bet the same people who are uninsured are the same people who are into the IRS for back taxes or in default on their student loans or child support or owe the credit card cos......on and on.
So now the government is going to try and get them to kick in for health insurance. LOL. When these types of folks see a letter from the IRS or other burcracy trying to collect a fine or enrollment fee good luck.
I’ll bet the same people who are uninsured are the same people who are into the IRS for back taxes or in default on their student loans or child support or owe the credit card cos......on and on.
So now the government is going to try and get them to kick in for health insurance. LOL. When these types of folks see a letter from the IRS or other burcracy trying to collect a fine or enrollment fee good luck.
BECOME a Depression ?? I’d say we’re in one already, and it’s about to get worse. . .
In the recently released Supreme Court decision in Printz v. United States and Mack v. United States, (June 27, 1997), Judge Scalia for the Court stated:
...”Finally, and most conclusively in the present litigation, we turn to the prior jurisprudence of this Court. Federal commandeering of state governments is such a novel phenomenon that this Court’s first experience with it did not occur until the 1970’s, when the Environmental Protection Agency promulgated regulations requiring States to prescribe auto emissions testing, monitoring and retrofit programs, and to designate preferential bus and carpool lanes. The Courts of Appeals for the Fourth and Ninth Circuits invalidated the regulations on statutory grounds in order to avoid what they perceived to be grave constitutional issues, see Maryland v. EPA, 530 F. 2d 215, 226 (CA4 1975); Brown v. EPA, 521 F. 2d 827, 838–842 (CA9 1975); and the District of Columbia Circuit invalidated the regulations on both constitutional and statutory grounds, see District of Columbia v. Train, 521 F. 2d 971, 994 (CADC 1975). After we granted certiorari to review the statutory and constitutional validity of the regulations, the Government declined even to defend them, and instead rescinded some and conceded the invalidity of those that remained, leading us to vacate the opinions below and remand for consideration of mootness. EPA v. Brown, 431 U. S. 99 (1977).
“Although we had no occasion to pass upon the subject in Brown, later opinions of ours have made clear that the Federal Government may not compel the States to implement, by legislation or executive action, federal regulatory programs. In Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc. 452 U. S. 264 (1981), and FERC v. Mississippi, 456 U. S. 742 (1982), we sustained statutes against constitutional challenge only after assuring ourselves that they did not require the States to enforce federal law. In Hodel we cited the lower court cases in EPA v. Brown, supra, but concluded that the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act did not present the problem they raised because it merely made compliance with federal standards a precondition to continued state regulation in an otherwise pre-empted field, Hodel, supra, at 288. In FERC, we construed the most troubling provisions of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978, to contain only the ‘command’ that state agencies ‘consider’ federal standards, and again only as a precondition to continued state regulation of an otherwise pre-empted field. 456 U. S., at 764–765. We warned that ‘this Court never has sanctioned explicitly a federal command to the States to promulgate and enforce laws and regulations,’ id., at 761–762.
“When we were at last confronted squarely with a federal statute that unambiguously required the States to enact or administer a federal regulatory program, our decision should have come as no surprise. At issue in New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144 (1992), were the so-called ‘take title’ provisions of the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985, which required States either to enact legislation providing for the disposal of radioactive waste generated within their borders, or to take title to, and possession of the waste—effectively requiring the States either to legislate pursuant to Congress’s directions, or to implement an administrative solution. Id., at 175–176. We concluded that Congress could constitutionally require the States to do neither. Id., at 176. ‘The Federal Government,’ we held, ‘may not compel the States to enact or administer a federal regulatory program.’ Id., at 188.
“The Government contends that New York is distinguishable on the following ground: unlike the ‘take title’ provisions invalidated there, the background-check provision of the Brady Act does not require state legislative or executive officials to make policy, but instead issues a final directive to state CLEOs. It is permissible, the Government asserts, for Congress to command state or local officials to assist in the implementation of federal law so long as ‘Congress itself devises a clear legislative solution that regulates private conduct’ and requires state or local officers to provide only ‘limited, non-policymaking help in enforcing that law.’ ‘[T]he constitutional line is crossed only when Congress compels the States to make law in their sovereign capacities.’ Brief for United States 16.
“The Government’s distinction between ‘making’ law and merely ‘enforcing’ it, between ‘policymaking’ and mere ‘implementation,’ is an interesting one. It is perhaps not meant to be the same as, but it is surely reminiscent of, the line that separates proper congressional conferral of Executive power from unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority for federal separation-of-powers purposes. See A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U. S. 495, 530 (1935); Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U. S. 388, 428–429 (1935)”....”Even assuming, moreover, that the Brady Act leaves no ‘policymaking’ discretion with the States, we fail to see how that improves rather than worsens the intrusion upon state sovereignty. Preservation of the States as independent and autonomous political entities is arguably less undermined by requiring them to make policy in certain fields than (as Judge Sneed aptly described it over two decades ago) by ‘reduc[ing] [them] to puppets of a ventriloquist Congress,’ Brown v. EPA, 521 F. 2d, at 839. It is an essential attribute of the States’ retained sovereignty that they remain independent and autonomous within their proper sphere of authority. See Texas v. White, 7 Wall, at 725. It is no more compatible with this independence and autonomy that their officers be ‘dragooned’ (as Judge Fernandez put it in his dissent below, 66 F. 3d, at 1035) into administering federal law, than it would be compatible with the independence and autonomy of the United States that its officers be impressed into service for the execution of state laws.”
Thanks for posting.
I am a CFP and a health insurance agent, and I am giving a presentation to a civic group in January.
This article will be part of that presentation!
Hey, sorry about the super long delay in replying, but thank you for the compliment. I hope it helps your presentation!
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