Tuesday, July 3, 2012

The Constitution’s Last Stand…


It may be the only way to save our constitution from the Washington DC elite. It seems the constitution is no longer the law of the land. It has been breached by the President, Legislature, and the Supreme Court. So what is the next battlefield to protect the principles that made this nation great? The Tenth Amendment is now the line in the sand that must be fortified with the state governors and the citizens of those states.

The Tenth Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

The federal government has over stepped its bounds and it is time to bring in the reinforcements. Governor Jindal, Governor Walker, and Governor Scott, are on the right track by stating they will not comply with the Obamacare Medicaid mandates but that is only the first step. There are 18 other Governors that are considering the same actions toward Medicaid but it is time to expand the scope of services that need to be nullified. Learn more about Nullification here at the Tenth Amendment Center.

The states need to reaffirm their role defined in the constitution as a protection against an over reaching central authority. If the citizens of the states want to fix the federal government they must participate in electing state representatives that understand the 10th amendment and are willing to challenge every federal mandate and start nullifying them.

Governors should start opening up the medical and healthcare insurance industries by eliminating mandates for coverage. They should open up the insurance market to include plans that simply cover catastrophic care and make it easier for doctors to practice medicine instead of spending their time administering insurance plans. Doctors should post a price list for services like preventative checkups and referrals. There are so many market ideas to be unleashed if the mandates are lifted and government is moved out of the market of healthcare.

States can set up a couple of simple rules for coverage. If you are an insurer and want to operate in the state you must accept a percentage of “high risk” patients in order to operate. People with pre-existing conditions would be distributed to health insurance companies that operate within the state. The entrepreneurial spirit and markets will create downward pricing pressures and doctors will have to compete for patients. In the end the market becomes more responsive to the patient, and the doctor gets paid a fair market wage not a wage determined by an insurance company or government bureaucrat.

Healthcare would be a start but education would be next. Allowing private sector and home school operations to expand using the tax dollars that would be saved by reducing the amount of federal tax dollars sent to DC for “education.” The Governors could determine how much they would allow the federal government to tax their citizens based on the constitutional responsibilities of the federal government. That would mean that the federal government would submit a budget to the states for defense and diplomacy and the states would pay their apportioned share.

Basically what we need are state representatives and governors with the fortitude to protect and defend the constitution. Is it radical? Only if you believe holding the federal government accountable to its constitutional limits is radical. It is only common sense and may be our last stand…

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