Calamity Jane strikes again.
Alabama Gov. George Wallace in the schoolhouse door, arguing for states' rights, June 11, 1963.
Whatever hopelessly wacky idea is floated in the conservative blogosphere, Missourians can be confident that state Sen. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, will lasso it and bring it back to Jefferson City.
Recently, Ms. Cunningham announced that come January, she would sponsor a state constitutional amendment to protect Missourians “against attempts to socialize health care through the ‘public option’ health care mandate currently under consideration by Congress.”
If approved by the Legislature and state voters, Missourians would be allowed to opt out of any health care reform passed by Congress. If you don’t want be forced to buy insurance under an “individual mandate,” that would be OK. You don’t want to provide your employees insurance, that would be OK, too.
You want to keep your private insurance plan instead of taking part in a “public option” plan, you’d have that right, too. Of course, President Barack Obama agrees with this part, but you can’t ever be too sure.
Missouri thus becomes one of about a dozen states in which lawmakers are waving the flag of “states’ rights” on the health care reform issue. Arizona is the clubhouse leader; the legislature there already has approved a measure for the November 2010 ballot that says no resident can be required to sign up for a “public option” health insurance plan.
Proponents call themselves “tenthers,” citing the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (one of the Bill of Rights): “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
The tenthers with the highest profiles are Republican governors Rick Perry of Texas and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota. In April, Mr. Perry suggested that the health care issue was such a broad incursion into state sovereignty that “who knows what could become of it?” The comment was widely interpreted as a threat to secede from the union, though Mr. Perry denied that.
Mr. Pawlenty, who has been mentioned as a possible GOP presidential contender in 2012, said last month that “the Tenth Amendment may be a viable option” in opposing health care mandates. He later backed away from any legislative or legal battle, saying the issue should only be a matter for public discussion.
If it goes as far as the courts, the tenthers’ argument would be in serious trouble. Article VI, paragraph 2 of the U.S. Constitution — the so-called “supremacy clause” — says that federal laws and treaties are “the supreme law of the land” and that state judges should uphold them, even if state laws or constitutions conflict.
This is why we no longer have separate but equal schools and separate water fountains and rest rooms. It is why we have voting rights and all of the other heinous incursions into states’ rights brought about by the civil rights movement. George Wallace and Lester Maddox are dead.
Still, in the current atmosphere, it seems inevitable that should health care reform pass, there will be extensive legal and legislative battles about “states’ rights,” wasting untold millions of dollars and thousands of hours of time, all in the interest of preserving insurance company profits and the 37th best-performing health care system in the world. Some states. Some rights.
We are only the 37th best as ranked by the WHO that wants all countries to have ‘universal health care’ and ranks you down if you don’t. They rank us number 1 in patient care.
However, on the Constitutional issue, the supremacy clause only applies where the federal government has jurisdiction to begin with. On this point, look at the 10th amendment regarding all powers not ‘enumerated’ being in the states and the people.
It isn’t an accident that health insurance is regulated by states, or that doctors and other health providers are licensed on a state by state basis. It has been our Constitution at work for over 200 years.
There is no Constitutional power for the federal government to require 300 million people to purchase lousy, government designed insurance they don’t want.
So in other words, Jane Cunningham, Missouri Republicans as most Republicans in Washington and, let’s not forget those Blue Dog Democrats, THEY WANT THINGS TO STAY THE SAME, NO INSURANCE REFORM, isn’t that what I am witnessing here?
Now the masks have come off with them screaming this to us through their actions. (lol).
Don’t Republicans think that they should cease with the deceptions about socialized medicine which they are referring to Universal Healthcare as if it is part of or has ever been part of the healthcare reform discussions? This continuous talk by the Republicans about socialized medicine is disingenuous!
So, now that that is out of the way, let’s say that we forget about any “public option” on the condition that:
1. Health Insurers MUST accept everyone and anyone no matter any pre-existing condition.
2. Health Insurers MUST charge premiums across the board, the same exact dollar amount monthly with ratings based on one factor age.
3. Health Insurers CANNOT increase their rates no more than 5% annually and any rate increase must be across the board on everyone in that class.
4. ALL children MUST have access to the healthcare that they need.
Will Republicans support this and, if not, WHY NOT?
At least we see through these States maneuvers that Republicans DO NOT WANT REFORM! THEY WANT THINGS TO STAY THE SAME and how tragic.
I can’t believe that Cunningham or any other Republican have the audacity to put forth this ridiculous bill without one solution in it to help fix this broken healthcare system. How insulting to our society. These people get very insulted when you think that they are heartless, but, what the heck? This present system isn’t good even for the average working class citizens of Chesterfield and if nay so foolishly think that it is, then they are suffering from false security.
spinnikerca,
If that is the case then the Federal government never had jurisdiction to implement Medicare. By the way, I hear that striping Medicare away and out of existence has been a secret plan of Republicans for a long time now, since the inception of Medicare, is that true? (lol). No doubt many of you would like to see that happen also, wouldn’t you?
By the way, the federal government gets it power under Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution and if they do not, then the government will have to CEASE collecting social security taxes out of everyone’s paycheck for Medicare a forced tax to pay for healthcare once people reach 65 years of age.
I’m willing to go for that insurance premium deal that is set by age as long as my taxes are set to decline with age. Using the logic that older people use more insurance as they get older, well, sick people use more insurance because they are sick. Should they be charged more, or are you just picking on old people?
Sinnekerca’s right; Platform’s getting bad legal advice. The issue isnt Article VI of the constitution; the issue would be whether the Congress has the right to regulate health-care in the first place under the commerce clause of the constitution, the clause under which discrimination legislation was passed. It used to be a gimme that everything was arguably under the Commerce Clause and so whatever congress wanted, congress got; but in recent years, it’s my understanding that the Supreme Court was starting to carve out exceptions, guns near schools legislation being one of them; so with this more conservative Supreme Court, you never know, tho I think the smart money would still be on health-care being within Congress’s right to legislate interstate commerce, but with most health-care sort of local, it might be a close call. So this legislation might not be as far out as some of Calamity Jane’s ideas; it’s a constitutional issue on which she might be right; the wisdom of it is a different issue upon which conservative tea-baggers, the “I dont care what happens to the country as long as Obama and the Dems dont get any credit for anything good” people, may differ. And btw, I was at Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum convention getting in touch with my conservative self. Jane was no where to be found. She must have been at the Socialist Worker’s convention.
I wish we had some onethers; as in 1 as in individual rights protectors.
Walker the enabler,
Perhaps you and the PD Editorial board would be kind enough to explain why the 10th Amendment does not apply here? You know, that pesky little statement which says, “The powers not delegated to the Unites States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Where is health care delegated to the United States by the Constitution?
Spinnikerca’s post is correct. This is an issue which belongs to the individual States.
…and the bought and paid for politicians go on with the agenda of the insurance companies and pharmacuetical companies that make unbelievably huge profits from health care. Their propaganda reaches new heights of taking advantage of the stupidity of the hateful GOP followers calling any plan that makes sense socialism when in fact, they don’t even know what real socialism is. Pathetic but if the public buys their propaganda, they’re getting what they deserve which primarily is more of the same.
Missouri has so many backward thinking leaders who hinder progress at every turn, and Jane Cunningham is right up there at the top coming up with her lamebrain ideas to send us back to the dark ages with health care reform. She must have the maturity and IQ level of a fifth grader, and a lack of empathy for those who are dying without health insurance available to them.
Public option = peace of mind for all citizens. We all need this to insure our health and well being as a nation. Only the thoughtless and myopic think otherwise. Jane Cunningham is in that category, along with about 30% of the country.
Just because “Tammy Faye” (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUJbDKCMbWc for illustration) is a nut case doesn’t mean she’s always wrong. In fact, while few would still draw the “states rights” line at slavery, that doesn’t mean that limits on federal power are obsolete. Historically, the several states of this nation have had many differences. That Cunningham disagrees with your effort to force all 50 of them to conform to the standards of Massachusetts reflects poorly on you, not Cunningham.