Last Monday, the Georgia House of Representatives voted by
an overwhelming margin of 115-59 to pass my pioneering bill (HB 707) to
circumscribe the Obamacare debacle for Georgia’s citizens and health care
community. The bill has moved to the Georgia Senate and Senate Insurance
& Labor Committee, where its fate will now be determined. Only an
aroused Georgia electorate with the courage to say “No” to the federal
Leviathan can assure legislative success and relief from Obamacare’s miseries. Jobs
are vanishing. Health insurance premiums are climbing. Health care
choices are shrinking. Error-plagued electronic enrollment remains
vexing. And federal and state government health care expenditures
continue soaring.
Obamacare’s multiple infirmities, however, cannot be cured
with an omnibus bill in the current political environment. A legislative
overdose could kill the baby in the cradle. That explains why I
scaled back my scope of HB 707 short of my ultimate ambition to prevent the
federal government from commandeering any resource of state or local government
to promote, enforce, or administer the federal health insurance provisions of
Obamacare. As passed by the Georgia House of Representatives, the bill’s
prohibitions are fourfold.
No state or local officer or employee on government time or
with government resources is permitted to advocate for the expansion of
Medicaid. (They would be permitted such advocacy speaking as private
individuals with private resources). The Medicaid program already places a
crippling burden on the state budget, and further expansion would be fiscally
prohibitive. The United States Supreme Court, moreover, has held that the
First Amendment right to free speech does not apply when the government speaks.
This prescription against Obamacare advocacy with government
resources complements a companion bill passed by the Georgia House of
Representatives (HB 990) sponsored by Representative Jan Jones
(R-Milton). Her bill prohibits expanding eligibility requirements for
Medicaid by increasing the qualifying income threshold without approval by an
act of the General Assembly. At present, Medicaid eligibility can be
loosened by a decision of the Governor alone despite the staggering ripple
effects on the budget. Medicaid spending is too important to be excluded
from the legislative domain.
HB 707 also prohibits the state from establishing or
operating a health insurance exchange to administer or implement Obamacare.
This opt-out is clearly permitted by the terms of the federal
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The federal government will be
obligated to use its own money and resources to establish a federal health
insurance exchange in Georgia, and will be held politically accountable for the
already conspicuous incompetence in its operation or administration.
My bill further prohibits any department or agency of the
state or political subdivision from using any funds—federal, state, or local—to
operate so-called “navigator” programs to encourage or assist persons to enroll
in Obamacare. At present, the Board of Regents and the University of
Georgia Cooperative Extension Service are spending millions on navigator
programs to accelerate a federal health insurance program that is destined to
crash. The bill would not, however, require the return of federal
navigator funds already received by the University of Georgia.
Finally, HB 707 prohibits the
Commissioner of Insurance from investigating, enforcing, or adjudicating health
insurance claims arising under the health insurance prescriptions of Obamacare,
for example, a prohibition on denying insurance based on pre-existing
conditions or requiring coverage for dependents up to age 26. The federal
government would be required to enforce Obamacare’s federal health insurance
mandates, as it does other federal directives. This constitutional
imperative is necessary to hold the federal government politically accountable
for its legislative or administrative utopian follies that evoke popular
wrath. Thus, precedents of the United States Supreme Court establish that
neither Congress nor the President are permitted under the Constitution from
conscripting state or local officials into administering the ill-conceived
Obamacare health insurance dictates to divert the electorate’s attention from
the federal culprit. My bill retains authority for Georgia’s Insurance
Commissioner to investigate and to enforce health insurance claims arising
under state law.
This division of federal and state authority is the norm in cases of concurrent jurisdiction over particular subjects of legislation. Federal antitrust complaints, for instance, are investigated by the United States Department of Justice or Federal Trade Commission, whereas state antitrust complaints are investigated by the Attorney General of Georgia. Federal crimes are investigated by the FBI, whereas state crimes are investigated by state law enforcement agents.
My bill is less ambitious than I would
have preferred. I would have saved state and local governments hundreds
of millions of dollars in Obamacare fees levied against health insurance
policies written for all state or local employees by authorizing payments only
for new employees hired after July 1, 2015. I believe Georgia would be
constitutionally entitled to permit the health insurance fees to be assessed
prospectively but not retrospectively based on the model that has been employed
in applying federal social security taxes on state or local employees prospectively
only. I will continue this discussion in the senate.
Democrats took great legal risks in passing Obamacare.
It escaped constitutional death by a single vote in the United States Supreme
Court. We Republicans must be no less bold in confronting the
never-ending encroachments of the federal Leviathan. We should learn from
the tortoise. It only makes progress when it sticks out its
neck.
Source: Jason Spencer email, legislative update.
Comments:
Jason Spencer is the Georgia House Rep for District 180. He
was elected in 2010. His district is in Southeast Georgia next to Jekyll
Island. His score on electtherightcandidate.us is 84%. He is among the 5%
highest scoring legislators.
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