I think you are missing the point. I read this as more a case of Virginia invoking its rights under the 10th Amendment. The Constitution does not grant the Federal government the right to mandate individuals purchase insurance and Virginia is protecting its citizens from an unlawful curbing of their liberty.
Absolutely. Got all that. The two additional points I was trying to make were:
1) It puts the average Joe in an interesting position with conflicting State and Federal laws, and
2) The intense amount of legal activity will cause millions to be spent on attorneys that could have been spent actually providing healthcare.
Virginia used that because they already have a law on the books that does not allow citizens of Virginia to be mandated into buying health insurance. Today’s bill further affirmed this right and updated a few things left out in reaction to Sunday’s vote.
Florida is looking at putting this into our Constitution three ways - first, legislation has been introduced in the House that with passage would have on November’s ballot an Amendment to Florida’s Constitution protecting us from federal mandates of health care.
Secondly there are already numerous citizen petitions being passed around that would do the same.
If neither of those are able to be done by November, the House, which is under Republican control (Marco Rubio is our current State Speaker of the House and future Senator) will introduce legislation that allow by law the ability of Floridians to opt out of the Fed mandate.
Florida’s Senate has a Dem majority (slight majority) and should change after November - here as in most places Dems are not faring well after Obama and especially after this past Sunday.
Once the Senate and House are in GOP hands we’ll easily have the Amendment passed as well as the opt-out law.