(Fox Business) - Even though
the highest court in the U.S. rule the Affordable Care Act constitutional in
June 2012, some Republicans aren’t backing down when it comes to blocking the
president’s signature legislation from being implemented.
Lawmakers in South Carolina are
working to pass legislation that would eliminate the ACA in the state. The
“South Carolina Freedom of Health Care Protection Act” was introduced in
April, and passed in the state’s House of Representatives by a 65-34 vote in
June. The bill was put on hold, but is expected to head to the GOP-led Senate
around Jan.14, according to state Rep. William Chumley
(R-Spartanburg). Chumley is a co-sponsor of the bill and is confident it will
pass the Senate and be signed into law by Republican Gov. Nikki Haley.
“I am more optimistic today than I have been
all along,” Chumley says, adding the sponsors have a rally planned on the
14th to spread awareness of the bill and vote. “I think people are
starting to see what a disaster ObamaCare is and the impact it will have on
their lives. They will pressure their senators to notice it too.”
At the heart of the bill is a
prohibition of state agencies, officers and employees from implementing any
part of health-care reform. The bill would outlaw state health-care exchanges and
would instead issue tax deductions to individuals instead of the tax penalties
they would face for not complying with the ACA. South Carolina is not
sponsoring its own state health-care exchange, meaning residents must enroll
via the federal exchange Healthcare.gov, which has been plagued with glitches
since its initial rollout on Oct. 1.
Under the ACA, every individual in
the country must have insurance by the end of open enrollment period or face a
penalty of $95 a year or 1% of their annual salary, whichever is higher.
If signed into law, the move in
South Carolina could effectively spread to other states, a trend Chumley is
confident will occur.
“This sets a precedent that
ObamaCare will be an economic and personal disaster,” he says. “I think more states
will join us and we will be successful in severely limiting the law.”
But Henry Aaron, Bruce and Virginia
MacLaury senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, doesn’t see more states
taking similar action and says the ACA is good for the country.
“I do understand that there are
people, for principled reasons, that object to the law. So far, they have not
been successful politically, but they are still fighting.”
Aaron says that he takes primary
issue with South Carolina’s bill giving tax credits to those who chose not to
comply with federal law to cover the federally-imposed penalty.
“It provides negligible compensation
for those who suffer federal penalties for violating the law of the land by
forgoing valuable benefits to which they may be entitled,” he says. “Thousands
of South Carolina residents are being told that if they forego federal tax
credits [for health insurance] to which they are legally entitled, thereby
harming themselves and incurring additional penalties, this law will give them
a few cents for each dollar of penalty they incur.”
He says residents will just end up
“injuring” themselves and their state for the sake of partisan politics.
While he disagrees with ObamaCare,
Chumley admits the health-care system is flawed.
“No
one would argue there are not problems with the system—it’s expensive and
overregulated—but let’s not just destroy the whole health-care system in our
country, instead we need to fix what is wrong with it,” he says. “I think once
people understand what this is about [referring to the bill] I can’t imagine
anyone who cares about future generations would want this much government
control in our lives.”
Source:
Fox Business News, Defiant State Aims to Nullify ObamaCare, December 10, 2013
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