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Florida Lawmakers Opposed To Health Care Reform Bill; AG To Sue
March 23, 2010
A panel of Florida lawmakers approved a proposed resolution to block the requirement that people buy health insurance beginning in 2014, and Florida’s attorney general has joined 11 state attorney generals with plans to file legal challenges.
Florida Attorney General and likely Republican gubernatorial nominee Bill McCollum said he would push forward with a promised attempt to get the mandate thrown out in court before it can ever take hold.
McCollum said Monday that he would join counterparts in nine states – South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Pennsylvania, Washington, North Dakota, South Dakota and Alabama – in suing the federal government over the insurance requirement as soon as President Barack Obama signs the measure into law, expected to occur as early as Tuesday morning.
“What this amounts to is a tax on living,” McCollum said on a conference call with reporters. “It is therefore unconstitutional.”
McCollum said the mandate would cost the state more than $1.6 billion in higher Medicaid costs.
“There is no way we can provide what is in this bill and still pay for education and other programs,” McCollum said.
After lengthy debate Monday that could have fit in with the hours of rancor in Congress as the health care measure neared approval, the House Health Care Regulation Committee voted 10-3 to approve the resolution (HJR 37), sponsored by Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood.
As their counterparts in Washington did, Republicans on the panel painted the forthcoming expansion of health care as an affront to basic American freedoms. Democrats countered by echoing the arguments made in Congress for passing the bill, comparing the requirement that insurance be purchased to requirements for drivers’ insurance.
They added that even if the resolution was approved by the Legislature and voters, it would be trumped by the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says that federal law trumps state law.
However, Plakon said that was a risk worth taking because “medical freedom” should be on the level of other freedoms ensconced in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights.
“We believe that an individual mandate that forces Floridians to buy insurance, whether on a federal basis like the one Washington passed last night or a state basis like the failed Massachusetts experiment is wrong for Floridians,” he told the panel as he implored them to support the resolution. “They are anti-freedom, anti-liberty and very likely unconstitutional. This will be the first time in American history that Americans will be forced to buy a product from a privately-held company for profit.”
Citing the U.S. Constitution’s Tenth Amendment, which leaves matters not dealt with by Congress to states, Plakon argued that the federal health care bill was a violation of states’ rights.
But Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda, D-Tallahassee, countered that health care was a “federal issue” and was long overdue.
“Every society has realized – it seems but ours – that health of our fellow citizens is extremely important,” she said “The fifty states have tried for the decades we have been in a health care crisis and they have not done that. We get deeper and deeper and deeper into the hole.”
The Democratically-aligned AFL-CIO labor union agreed with Vasilinda, praising the Congressional health care bill and accusing the Republican-dominated panel of playing politics by pushing the resolution against it.
“The half million workers, retirees and families we represent woke up this morning ecstatic that something was finally done to reform our health care system,” Florida AFL-CIO lobbyist Rich Templin told the panel “What happened last night was finally, people in this state will know in just a few days that they can’t lose their coverage because they get sick.”
But Rep. Bill Proctor, R-St. Augustine, responded by asking Templin “is Washington or is the AFL-CIO going to help us pay” for extending health care coverage in the state.
Comments
11 Responses to “Florida Lawmakers Opposed To Health Care Reform Bill; AG To Sue”
And the President and Dems aren’t hipocrits? They won’t be MADE to participate in this new great give away. Do a little reading on the subject. The amendment added to the senate bill by a REPUBLICAN to mandate that congress would fall under the new healthcare plan was striken in the house reconciliation bill by Pelosi and friends. It’s great for the rest of us, just not for congress or the president.
Bill McCollum is running For Governor…
So to Please reactionary “Know Nothings” He “Thinks National Health Insurance Federal Legislation “Is Unconstitutional”….
….. an intrusion of Federal Government into State matters…
Florida Today has 12.5 PerCent Unemployement!
These Florida Citizens HAVE NO HEALTH INSURANCE!
there are also 800,000 Florida Children without Health Insurance!
Does McCollum CARE ABOUT THEM?
McCollum IS A Hipocrite Attorney General, Unless He Also Sues “To CANCEL Social Security and Medicare MANDATORY Federal retirement and health Contributions, as well as and Benefit Payments Of All FLORIDIANS”!
McCollum has “A Mandatory State of Florida FREE Pension and Health Insurance for Him & His Family that continues after he leaves State JOB”, and continues until he Dies. Fine For Him and Family, but I do Not!
Perhaps, like Govenor Perry of Texas….. He’s Thinkin o’ Seceedin”?
yeah u can choose to drive a car then get insurance… but i can “walk” and get hit by an un-isured driver… then? there’s plenty of people who cant go to the doctor or dentist for minor to serious things because they dont have insurance and dont get paid enough to afford it… so why dont we all help each other out a little so every can?? the taxes we pay go for things other people need anyway (unemployment etc) so whats the problem?
Hmmmm…..okkkk…if this is such a good thing and the one’s that are all for it… shouldn’t mind if I drop my insurance that I’ve been paying over the years and pocket the money for here on out……cause if I don’t have IT….I fall under the bill and YOU pay for it…then I can finally afford to do the stuff and buy the things I dream of!!!!!!!!!!
Oh my! Are we going to be exempt from buying car and homeowner’s insurance too?
This is nothing more that political grandstanding. McCullum should be spending his time DOING HIS JOB, like investigating and prosecuting the massive $3.2 BILLION in Medicaid fraud that he has ignored
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/05/1513632/sink-blames-mccollum-for-medicaid.html
We have been bucked off by this country over & over & over again and I’m not going to ride this bronk any longer. Our rivals in D.C., Bomma and his woman Pit Bull, could care less about “By the people for the people”. These are the worse degenerates that we have ever had running our country, even worse than the Clintons, and thats a fact. I declare a clean sweep of the present administration all the way down to everyone who voted to pass this horrid “health care bill”. We can’t afford to pay & pay & pay. The price of everything has gone up from gas to groceries… but Not the paychecks and now They are going to hurt us even more. Families are sleeping in the streets that once had good jobs and homes to live in and you all know that They do not give a hoot!!
I say SUE the pants off those “Legal Criminals” that are taking our last pennies right out of our holey pants pockets.
I could call them bad ugly names that they do deserve, but I’m better than they are and I won’t lower myself to their standards to do such.
“Have a Jesus Filled Day”
No offense Bamaboy, but that logic sounds great if one is ALWAYS healthy. However, a better way to follow that same logic would be:
Only buy car insurance if you want to drive.
Only buy medical insurance if you want to live.
Please SUE !!!!!
I have never seen such grose disregard of the will of the people in my 60 years. This has made me ashamed of my own country. We need a clean sweep in the next election then maybe our newly elected officials will respond to our needs and desires.
Dr. Judy
this is just a way that the government is going to take more money from us. Why should I pay for the crack addict to get health insurance, or the homeless person who isn’t even trying to get a job. We already don’t have as much money to spend causing the economy to get worse. Taking more money from us is going to counteract any economic progress we may have seen already.
SCREW THIS IM GOING TO BRITISH COLOMBIA
The major difference is…We can choose to own a car.
hmmmmm if its like drivers insurance then it would be simple. you dont have to have drivers insurance if you dont drive. So why would you need medical insurance when you dont need it. Just a thought.