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.”
Perhaps Virginia could pass a state law that any and all government agents acting under the color of law within the state must obtain a Virginia Law Enforcement Permit to Possess a Firearm. Then deny it to the IRS, etc. Twenty year felony on first offense should do the trick.
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I LOVE this, question is, is it do-able?
The intense amount of legal activity will cause millions to be spent on attorneys that could have been spent actually providing healthcare.
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Well, I am married to an attorney and I don’t believe in western medicine so I don’t need healthcare so it works for me.
I want to see the other states (esp those involved in the lawsuit) pass similar legislation.
Rubio has turned Crist into a eunuch. Crist will do as the voters want at this point.
I’m very proud of my native state. Thank God we are winning Virginia back.
Governor Butch Otter of Idaho was actually the first - middle of last week signing the legislative bill into law...directing the ID Att’y Gen to sue the Federal monster to protect Idahoans from the unConstitutional mandate.
So there are Texas and 47 others that ought to follow, but probably less than 46 which will.
Oregon - (Portland and Salem primarily) bastion of wobblies, commies, anarchists and various libs - will not do so under the current regime...they might actually sue to insure retaining their place at the federal trough..
I wish we could pack up right now and move there...
“Times they are a changin’.”
I think the point another poster made is spot on: the states may be forced to fight this as they simply don’t have the money to fund it. They’ll have to face the voters wrath for tax increases or program cuts. All for something most of their constituents didn’t want in the first place.
Most of the states are unable to spend at a deficit as it violates their state constitution.
The states haven’t shown much backbone at all when it comes to unfunded mandates, but this is the mother of all unfunded mandates.
“For clarity, you mean a massive revolt AGAINST big gubmint?”
Sorry meant ‘massive revolt *away* from big gubmint.’
Exactly. That’s where the battle lines of reality are being drawn. The federal morons best get a clue about reality.
De-funding this healthcare monstrosity is an immediate measure that can be taken to stop it in its tracks. We must wait for a conservative President to take office in 2012 before it can be repealed permanently.
AMEN!
The local law-enforcement idea is great fun, but the Feds would just pass a law overriding it. Under the supremacy clause and the necessary and proper clause (stating that guns are needed by the IRS, etc. to do their jobs), the courts would have to uphold it using the rational-basis test (an extremely deferential test) normally applied to determine whether a law is constitutional.
Exactly my point. The states see what’s happened in CA and most states wish to remain solvent. The alternative is unthinkable (for most).
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