Health Care Reform: A Consolidation of Federal Power
While the legislative battle to reform health care may be over in the 111th Congress, my fight to protect the sovereignty of our states, our individual liberties, and our pocketbooks continues.
I understand the need to reform our health care system, but the bill recently signed into law by President Obama is just a consolidation of power by the federal government. Ensuring that all Americans have access to affordable healthcare is a worthy goal and one that I support, but we should do it by empowering patients, not the government. We need fiscally responsible solutions that will lower costs; solutions like lawsuit reform and allowing people to purchase insurance across state lines, not tax hikes and individual mandates.
As a Jeffersonian conservative, I instinctively resist any shift of power to the federal government. For the first time in the history of our Republic, the federal government is attempting to force individual Americans to buy services from private companies or face a penalty. Nowhere in the Constitution does it authorize the federal government to mandate, either directly or under the threat of penalty, that all citizens have qualifying health care coverage. By imposing this new mandate, the President’s health care bill exceeds the powers of the federal government enumerated in the Constitution and violates the sovereignty of the states provided for by the Tenth Amendment.
As the Attorney General of Texas, Greg Abbott, recently stated, “For the first time Congress is attempting to regulate and tax Americans for doing absolutely nothing. H.R. 3590 attempts to tax and regulate each American’s mere existence.” Congress and the federal government must stop weakening the Constitution, which is why I have cosponsored a resolution commending the efforts of state legislatures, Attorneys General, and individual citizens to resist the implementation of the health care bill.
