Feb 2, 2010 by Bruce
Yes, in Virginia there is a sanity clause
And the good senators in the Democratic-controlled state senate of the Commonwealth of Virginia just passed it. That is, they passed a measure to make it illegal to require individuals to purchase health insurance. Talk about an in-your-face response to the proposed federal mandate I’ve talked about before. And Virginia is not alone – similar measures are pending in at least 29 other state legislatures. That seems like a sane response from states increasingly worried about the federal government encroaching on their sovereignty.
Now, we can argue about whether such state measures are merely symbolic – i.e., is Virginia’s senate just whistling in the dark because a national takeover of healthcare insurance will preempt any contrary state measures? Virginia says it’s trying to establish legal “standing” for itself to join a lawsuit with other states against the federal government over any healthcare bill that comes out of Congress.
I’m not so much immediately interested in whether such measures as Virginia’s are constitutionally effective when the dust clears from litigation, as I am in the non-partisan phenomenon of states rising up like Tea Partiers to draw a line in the sand to say “NO” to another enormous expansion of the federal government’s reach.
Rich Lowry at NRO has written an intriguing essay about all this entitled “How Big Government Became a Cultural Issue.” He thinks that at stake in the stunning Scott Brown election “wasn’t just a grab-bag of fiscal issues, but the meaning of the country – the ultimate cultural issue.”
If the“healthcare reform” bills passed by the Senate and House are now mortally wounded, I won’t mourn for them.
Besides, if we nationalize healthcare, where will Canadians go for their surgeries?
Where were all these folks over the last ten years? Was Focus on the forefront of railing against the Medicare expansion entitlement? How about tax cuts that weren’t paid for?
Or was it as Hatch summed up – “back then, we didn’t worry about paying for things”.
Yes, it is in fashion now – but if the GOP gets back in office, they’ll go back to their big government ways that got us into this financial mess.
Healthcare reform got onto Focus’ radar screen when it included taxpayer-funded abortion and administrative panels making economic decisions that affect end of life issues. We’ve fought other government programs through the years that attempted the same thing. Once on our radar screen of family issues such as life, marriage and family, religious liberty, etc, then constitutional issues like federalism and separation of powers, commerce clause, etc become fair game for critique.
How cool is it that folks are waking up and reclaiming their freedoms? Things like mandated health care insurance may seem like small allowances to some, but the principle of gov’t taking over more and more of our lives is set by it nonetheless and once we start going down the slipperly slope it’s hard to stop — which is why I’d argue things like this AREN’T small at all. Wake up and smell the soft tyranny, folks! We can still stop it — and kudos for Virginia for fighting back.