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PDF versionDon't Carry Me Back to Ole' Virginny
by Michael Sean Winters on Mar. 11, 2010
I confess that I always get a bit nervous when circumstances require that I cross the Potomac into the Commonwealth of Virginia. In part it is the horrendous traffic situation, which can only be fixed by raising taxes, something that is the kiss of political death in the conservative state. In 2008, when the Old Dominion went for Obama, I briefly toyed with the idea of reconsidering my prejudice. After all, there are many beautiful sights from Monticello to Williamsburg and many others. But, just when I was prepared to set aside my prior antipathy, the state goes and does something so stupid, I am confirmed in my Yankee bias.
Yesterday, the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia passed a law that would make it illegal to compel any of its citizens to buy health insurance. A mandate to purchase such insurance is at the heart of the current health care reform bill nearing enactment in Congress. According to the Washington Post, 24 other states are considering similar legislation.
You do not have to be particularly well informed to know that the power of any state to nullify a federal law has a history and that the question was resolved by the Civil War. This is the kind of ridiculous grandstanding that is an affront to that history. The lawmakers should be ashamed of themselves.
What I find cruelly
What I find cruelly ridiculous is fining someone for not affording health insurance, as if it were auto insurance, as if fining the indigent has ever worked (remember the British debtor's prisons).
Anyway, I never kicked the tires before taking on this body.
frère charles du désert OSB OBLAT (Congrégation de Subiaco
If the government can mandate
If the government can mandate that individual citizens purchase health insurance, then the government can mandate - command - that you do or not do anything, and pay for it, too.
There is no analogous mandate currently in effect in any American jurisdiction. The closest thing may be car insurance - if you want to drive, you must have proof of insurance. But there is no mandate to purchase car insurance if you don't drive.
Government by mandate - by command. Is that what we want? Whats next, a health insurance draft? Is that what proponents of health care reform are advocating? Just asking.
"You do not have to be
"You do not have to be particularly well informed to know that the power of any state to nullify a federal law has a history and that the question was resolved by the Civil War."
...and you do not need to be particularly well informed either to know that the provision in the health care reform bill that requires people to purchase health insurance is unconstitutional. But that provision can not be declared unconstitutional until and unless it is challenged in court. This alleged ridiculous grandstanding may just expedite that challenge. It certainly won't be the first time some Yankee carpetbagger, no, scalawag fits this author much better, was fooled by some good ole southern boy/girl.
Way to go Virginia! Finally
Way to go Virginia! Finally a state has the temerity to say to the Federal Government, "this far, no farther". Would that more states follow Virginia's lead, just as they did during the Revolution.
Your outrage presumes the
Your outrage presumes the federal government has the authority under the interstate commerce clause to compel citizens to buy a product on pain of criminal punishment. You don't have to be particularly well informed to know that no such thing has ever been tried before, and represents a particularly troubling presumption.
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