Citing potential problems for TRICARE recipients, the cost of the bill, and cuts to children’s hospitals, Congressman Glenn Nye announced this evening that he will vote against adopting the health care proposal under consideration in the House of Representatives.
“Over the past year, I have spoken with countless small business owners, families, medical professionals, and average citizens across Virginia’s 2nd District, and it became very clear that this bill was not the right solution for Virginia’s health care challenges,” said Congressman Nye. “There were many strong points in this bill that I would have been happy to support individually, but the package as a whole had serious problems.”
He concludes that after consideration, his conscience and the best interests of his state, forces him to cast a no vote on Obamacare.
“I know there are some people who will be disappointed with my vote, but I believe that I have a firm duty to vote my conscience and represent the best interests of my district. As much as we need health care reform, we also have an obligation to enact responsible changes for the American people, and to restore their trust in government,” Nye concluded.
For weeks the Democrats have tried to portray the inevitability of passing their health care monstronsity of a bill, and even again this morning has Reps claiming Pelosi has the 216 votes needed to pass it, but other newws contradicts those assertions.
One example is California Rep. Loretta Sanchez, who appears to be MIA for the process, and while she is expected back for Sunday's vote, leaders are now listing her as "NO" vote, according to Roll Call.
Should the House pass this bill, along with the reconciliation bill which would have to go back to the Senate to be voted on, the Senate's version of Obamacare would, indeed, be ready for Obama's signature and become law with liberal Democrat's having to pray and hope Harry Reid can get the 51 votes needed, via reconciliation, to pass the fixes the House votes on before they vote on the Obamacare bill before them.
The reconciliation bill aside as well as what will happy when it reaches the Senate, Randy E. Barnett at Washington Post points to the constitutional issues already being raised about the Senate's version and how the courts will end up deciding if many of the provisions in the bill are even legal.
With the House set to vote on health-care legislation, the congressional debate on the issue seems to be nearing its conclusion. But if the bill does become law, the battle over federal control of health care will inevitably shift to the courts. Virginia's attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli II, has said he will file a legal challenge to the bill, arguing in a column this month that reform legislation "violate[s] the plain text of both the Ninth and Tenth Amendments." On Friday, South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster and Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum announced that they will file a federal lawsuit if health-care reform legislation passes.
An example of one of those issues is "The Individual Mandate"
Can Congress really require that every person purchase health insurance from a private company or face a penalty? The answer lies in the commerce clause of the Constitution, which grants Congress the power "to regulate commerce . . . among the several states." Historically, insurance contracts were not considered commerce, which referred to trade and carriage of merchandise. That's why insurance has traditionally been regulated by states. But the Supreme Court has long allowed Congress to regulate and prohibit all sorts of "economic" activities that are not, strictly speaking, commerce. The key is that those activities substantially affect interstate commerce, and that's how the court would probably view the regulation of health insurance.But the individual mandate extends the commerce clause's power beyond economic activity, to economic inactivity. That is unprecedented. While Congress has used its taxing power to fund Social Security and Medicare, never before has it used its commerce power to mandate that an individual person engage in an economic transaction with a private company. Regulating the auto industry or paying "cash for clunkers" is one thing; making everyone buy a Chevy is quite another. Even during World War II, the federal government did not mandate that individual citizens purchase war bonds.
If you choose to drive a car, then maybe you can be made to buy insurance against the possibility of inflicting harm on others. But making you buy insurance merely because you are alive is a claim of power from which many Americans instinctively shrink. Senate Republicans made this objection, and it was defeated on a party-line vote, but it will return
Read the entire piece, it also deals with The Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, Gator Aid and other deals.
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