First of all, there was already an exemption worked into the “requirement” for health care coverage, so is Bob just grandstanding? States rights vs federal rights is an ongoing fight, in many ways the civil war seemed to address that ying and yang, didn’t it?
How about those who are opposed to social security or medicare being taken out of their pay checks because they oppose that “government” intervention into their lives. There are credible arguments for ensuring that all Americans are insured, my issue with the requirement, is that you are just lining the pockets of insurance companies if you don’t also allow for a non profit public option! Anyway, there are lots of federal laws that we all abide by, and I would say that if the state can opt out of healthcare, what else can the state legislative body, at the behest of whichever party is in control, “opt” out of, if the opposing party happens to be in power at the Federal level.
Many extemists argue that the income tax is “unconstitutional”, but that argument has been resoundingly rejected!
I think it’s safe to say that Marshall wants to challenge Jim Webb in 2012. It’s never too early to start campaigning.
Bob Marshall is wasting everyone’s time. This is just political posturing. If he wants to do something beneficial, why doesnn’t he go tell the feds VA wont be participating in NCLB. yea, right.
He is looking for a court challenge.
Do these legislators not realize there are budget and transportation issues?
Agree with you M-H. I was about to post the same thoughts.
Republicans are in high heat attempting to get max publicity as they
pander and posture for the cameras before they are forced,
kicking and screaming, to deal with 2010-11 budget for which there
are no easy soundbite anwers – only tough and unpopular choices.
Won’t see Brother Bob waiting for his close-up then.
For once I am at a loss for words. So much ignorance has been belched out into a green fog of stench here so far that I wouldn’t even know where to start. All I can say is you libs may have some sad days coming your way, but unfortunately I don’t think y’all can be helped.
Buh-Bye, Bayh!
Slow,
I believe, as a nation, if we can’t figure out a way to bring back healthy debate, without the hysteria, to government, we ALL have sad days coming.
Do you think insurance reform is not needed? Really?! What do you believe is also on the rise with the jobless rate? Not just unemployment checks, but ER waiting rooms. What do people do when they don’t have affordable health care? RAISE all our premiums. Is that message also lost in your “green fog” of denial?
Slowpoke, I am afraid you are the one who will ultimately be left behind.
Insulting the people of Anti will not bring back states rights or slow down the tides of change that seem to take place from one generation to the other.
I doubt very seriously if most of us who you attempt to insult consider ourselves liberals. I am not sure what you would do if you met a real liberal.
If Bob Marshall is the answer to Virginia’s woes, it is no longer the state of my birth or of my family who has been here since the 1700s.
I support Del. Marhall’s legislation and the same legislation that passed the VA Senate. Good work Delegates!
– None of us know if a new Federal healthcare bill will even be passed,
much less what the end product will look like.
– What ever happens, the Virginia House of Delegates has
no authority for nullification. Zip.
– Delegate Marshall is suggesting using authority he doesn’t have to
battle a bill that doesn’t exsist.
–
marin, how to you plan on getting around a federal mandate should one come? Who do you think will prevail?
See Poor Richard’s remarks. I think he knows what he is talking about.
I see that Virginia has too much on its plate to get involved with chest thumping over health care that hasn’t even past. You do see the need for health care reform, do you not?
Anyone here have an opinion on Printz v. United States (1997) or New York v. United States (1992)?
Those are the cases Del. Marshall was speaking of where the SCOTUS ruled in favor of the 10th Amendment and States rights.
Wonder how his daughter is doing.
@Moon-howler
Sorry, I posted after seeing your last message.
No, I do not see any need for govt involvement in healthcare.
Virginia has thumbed it’s nose at the Fed’s before. The Fed’s have an open container law as part of transportation funding for highways. Virginia however allows for front seat passangers to have open alcoholic containers. One state – I think Louisianna – allows the driver to be consuming alcohol while driving as long as they’re under the limit.
You can find MANY examples of the States telling the Fed’s to pound sand.
REAL ID is a *great* example.
Yes, Marinm, you are right, Virginia has “thumbed its nose at the Fed’s before”, remember school segregation? Virginia thumbed its nose then and closed its public schools. The State really showed the Feds then didn’t they? How did that work out for ya?
Bob Marshall needs to focus on issues that Virginians face today, right now and in the next trying fiscal year. I don’t see US Senator or Rep. in front of his name. Do the job he was elected to do, not anticipate something that may, or may not happen while the State fiscal house is on fire.
@Lucky Duck
If the HCR act doesn’t violate the consitution there is little to worry about.
As to ‘doing his job’ – he is. He swore an oath to the US and Virginian Constitutions. This proposed law is consistent with that. He, like many Americans, just want the government to follow it’s own laws.
Hi Lucky!
Excellent points! You and Poor Richard are right on, how can one “fight” against an issue that doesn’t even exist.
My hope had been that McDonnell and the General Assembly would teach Washington how to put good policy before partisan posturing. Instead, it seems they are learning from Washington how to put partisan posturing before ANYTHING. Really disappointing.
Excellent and sobering reminder, Mr. Duck. There has always been a racial element on the “states rights” argument, since the abolitionism days if not earlier.
So, if a hispanic like myself makes a states right arguement am I racist to whites or myself?
VA asked for exemption from No Child Left Behind as well. I don’t think a state’s right position makes you both racist and anti-edcuation.
However, VA lawmakers need to not react to what they perceive as control and consider what is best for their citizens. Health care is necessary to protect people as much as it is to provide treatment. Should it stop there – that is subject to debate. But putting people at risk for the wrong reason is not a thoughtful decision.
I consider seat belt laws to be extremely invasive. This law is a direct result of the insurance industry forcing states to comply or threatening higher insurance premiums. There was no outrage over that.
PS – what has ethnicity to do with your question?
@Juturna
Nothing. But, a charge of racism is usually thrown around when anyone speaks of 10th Amendment or States Rights.
The important take aways are; is the legislation Congress wants to put forward constitutional and how are the states supposed to regulate the program?
Del. Marshall proposes that what he’s seen from Congress is an unconstitutional law and is looking to proactively defend Virginians from the federal government.
I don’t see a problem with that.
Jut, agreed. I usually drive without my seat belt and only do so when going onto Federal property. However, I make children under my charge use seat belts.
@marinm
Yes, and we called it massive resistance.
As for open container, well damn, now that’s something to hang our hats on. Maybe the feds haven’t noticed or they think it is too petty to be bothered with.
@Moon-howler
I think the ‘penalty’ for VA’s open container law WRT the feds providing us transportation monies is either $200K or $2M (year). It’s one of the smaller penalties for that law.
We can still use REAL ID as a ‘better’ example. Either way, its not uncommon for the States to tell the Feds to pound sand and for the people to be OK with it.
You could be right! The point wasn’t personal insults, but rather disbelief that people with brains evolved beyond the basic reptilian can believe that bigger, more powerful central government is the answer. It really has nothing to do with insulting individuals…I’d probably get along swimmingly with any of the other posters on Anti in person, I’ve always thought that. I totally understand that it looks like I’m insulting, I get that, can’t fix it, that’s just the way electronic communication is….it lacks any sort of nuance. I don’t mind being left behind, truth be told. Those who blaze a trail to the utopia of leviathan government cradle-to-grave control can enjoy your…..programmed lives run by huge central authorities…I have no doubt you’ll love it, and you’ll get to think how unlucky folks like me are.
Well, I still haven’t gotten over Del Marshall’s reaction to local cost cutting – he was all for it until it hit his family. Although he clearly believes that a woman’s place is in the home caring for family, he used his influence to reverse a BOCS decision on local adult day care.
He is outspoken in his contempt of woman and their roles and their rights. He made some simply revolting comments about “love canals” on the floor of the VA Legislature.
Maybe we (I know I am) are somewhat guilty of hearing a loud roar in our ears when his name or photo is flashed before us.
I still want some standards that attempt to protect the public from disease.
@Slowpoke Rodriguez
I think I will be one of the unlucky ones too. It is a shame that people no longer trust in the strength of a motivated individual anymore. It is somewhat amazing that “welfare to work” was fought against so hard until President Clinton finally went to the center after the republican takeover in 1994 . I know many success stories after it was finally adopted.
I hope I have instilled it in my kids so that they will be as unlucky as me. At least they will go to bed at night knowing that they worked hard for what they have earned.
Thank God folks like Marshall are concentrating on the issues that keep Virginians like me up at night. Resolutions and such telling Mordor-on-the-Potomac to take their power-grabs and stick them where the sun don’t shine isn’t anything we came up with. Similar measures are passing in quite a few other states right now. If you want the Constitution discarded, there is a means to do it correctly, and those who want to be slaves to Ododo’s Central Planning Committee are welcome to tell their state reps that they wish a convention to be called to amend or discard the Constitution. But while it still exists, there will be those of us who defend it. Funny thing is, Ododo, Biden, and all of our crooked “representation” have to take an oath to defend the Constitution. What a hoot that is.
Marshall was elected to the VIRGINIA House, not the US House. He needs to get the State’s monies in order before wasting time on a fight that may not happen. Has health care passed and I missed it? He’s boxing in the dark against a bill that does not exist.
If he wants to spend his time fighting Federal battles, step up and run for Federal office. The people of his district already have a US House Rep. Let them do their job and let Marshall concentrate on what he was elected to do. Solve Virginia’s problems. Right now, there is no Health Care bill for him to fight. He’s wasting time and effort.
Call me crazy, but I believe the Federal Government plays an integral role in a civilized society. When Bush was in office and trampling on people’s rights with wiretapping, where was the outrage over over reaching government and “big brother” listening in on your conversations? Where was the outrage over wiretapping senior citizen Quakers? I always find it interesting that when Republicans trample on individual rights its much different than when Democrats want to level the playing field so people have a fair chance at success through hard work.
If people want to Feudal system, here’s an idea, visit Afganastan, you can see first hand how “tribal” or states rights works without a strong central government!
What people don’t get, which is amazing to me, is that the cost of health care is STRANGLING our free enterprise market! If you believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, if you believe that the heart of America is the small business owner, then you MUST believe that the cost of insurance is breaking the proverbial back of business’s, small AND big for that matter.
I don’t believe, in a country as wealthy as this one, that people should be allowed to die because of lack of affordable health care. THAT is not the cornerstone of my America.
So slowpoke, do you believe social security and medicare should be abolished?
You ask questions worth answering. We do need insurance reform. What we REALLY need is ways to keep costs down. How about capping the percentage that trial lawyers (ambulance chasers) get in medical malpractice suits? How about opening up competition among insurance carriers across state lines? How about letting us import drugs from Canada? I want to keep the costs down, and I don’t think we need 100 new government agencies to go along with my insurance reform when it’s not necessary! Oh yes, and include abolishing pre-existing conditions BS and lifetime benefit caps. I also think there are cool free-market ways to bring down costs. So I’m with you that we need insurance reform…..but currently, the only answers I’ve seen from Democrats don’t fix anything, but hands over all kind of power to the federal government. Republicans have had great ideas, but they’ve been shut out by the Dems. It’s very annoying that the answers are dangling right in front of us, but we can’t get there.
Absolutely. Is it going to happen?? Absolutely not. Once entitlements are established, you can’t get rid of them. Ask Europe what entitlements do (if you can get a question in edgewise while their economies collapse).
Correct you are, and those roles are established and defined without ambiguity in the Constitution. If you want it changes or abolished, you should recommend your state representatives call for the convention to do so.
Just out of curiosity, where are you with the whole Obama-cell-phone thing?
@Elena
That’s not really a good arguement in that many organizations on the right fought against the Bush-Obama wiretap bills – especially the libertarians.
When civil liberties are threatened you get the oddest combinations of people fighting for them. A good example of this is the recent 1st Amendment ruling by the SCOTUS where the ACLU, CATO, NRA, and AFL-CIO all came together. A civil liberty was threatened and opposing sectors of the partisan divide came together to fight on behalf of civil liberties.
There is no question that people don’t want a Feudal system – we just want a govt that respects it’s own laws. The feds should be primarily concerned with national defense, foreign policy and trade, and national matters WRT Article 1.
Healthcare is not one of those issues as it can be handled and is handled at a State level.
California, Hawaii, Washington State, Mass all have state run healthcare systems. The states have seen it proper for themselves to take up the issue. Allow the states that want to do it to do it for themselves. If we as the voters don’t want Virginia to follow along; that’s of course the will of the governed.
HC costs are complex. As Elena pointed out costs are skyrocketing. Unlike many countries on this planet we spend billions of dollars trying to keep our sick and dying alive. We also encourage people to go to a doctor for any ailment they may have in the hope that this prevenative treatment will lower costs on the backend – forgetting that there is an up front cost.
An area where I will disagree with Elena is that people in this country aren’t allowed to die because of a lack of affordable healthcare. In the US no person can be refused from a public hospital for emergency treatment.
The system works. We just need the intestinal fortitude to tell our neighbors across this country that not everyone needs brand name medication, that you don’t need to goto a doctor for a cough, that you really don’t need that stint if you took better care of yourself, etc.
We need, as a society, to be able to look someone in the eye and say; you must die so that others may live. That’s the ugly stinky truth about healthcare because it’s a finite resource and we’ll never have as much as we need for everyone.
I know the question was directed to slowpoke but I’ll throw in my $0.02. Social security and medicare should be abolished.
There were and are good and valid security reasons for wiretapping. And, if you have nothing to hide and aren’t making terroristic theats, why should you be bothered by that? Some terrorist attacks have been STOPPED due to wiretapping, you can bank on it. So, you’d rather have bombs going off in American cities or where Americans are abroad because you are worried the gov’t is listening in on you?
The algorithms look for key words, and 99.9999999% of phone conversations aren’t even listened to. That percentage that is, those people have legitimate reasons to fear wiretapping, as they are unsavory individuals.
I never understood this outrage. The day a bomb goes off and kills 1000 people because the gov’t couldn’t wiretap as they needed to , will be a sad day indeed. I am more than willing to give up my civil liberties to be safe.
But, I know, on here it is very fashionable by some posters to attack the Republicans, attack Bush, attack attack attack!
Senior citizen Quakers – now that’s rich – where did that phony evidence get created that they were wiretapped. Preposterous!
Slowpoke’s crazy for thinking that the states need to protect themselves from the destruction the feds wish to visit upon them. He’s crazy. He’s crazy about the Global Warming thing, too. He thinks Al Gore’s an ass-clown, but nobody can dispute the science, right? That slowpoke, he’s just crazy!
Senior Citizen Quakers……..I must have missed something. Was it proven that the government was listening in on elderly ducks? I’d think all they’d hear is a bunch of talk about supplemental insurance.
How many seniors would be eating cat food if it wasn’t for social security and medicare. I have never talked to anyone on medicare who would refuse it. If all those people like it, something must be right.
As much as I have paid into the social security system, I certainly do not feel it is an entitlement.
I think too many people are thinking they are constitutional specialists and that includes Mr. Marshall. He continues to make himself a laughing stock. After Mr. Love Canals, he simply has no credibility with mainstream people.
What people don’t ever mention when they start in on states rights, etc is the 220 or so years of cases that interpret and reinterpret the existing constitution.
“Widespread abuses – including eavesdropping on Vietnam War protesters and civil rights activists – by American intelligence agencies became public in the 1970’s and led to passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which imposed strict limits on intelligence gathering on American soil. Among other things, the law required search warrants, approved by the secret F.I.S.A. court, for wiretaps in national security cases. The agency, deeply scarred by the scandals, adopted additional rules that all but ended domestic spying on its part. ”
http://www.unobserver.com/layout5.php?id=2869&blz=1
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0116-09.htm
I am not sure if “wiretapped” was the correct verbage, it had been a while since I read the story, but clearly, they were under suviellance. Ah, Bob Barr, who is no leftist liberal, came out strongly against the patriot act. I am not necessarily against everything in the patriot act, but the premise that if I have nothing to hide, who cares if the government spies on me is NOT the foundation for a free society.
Miriam,
You won’t get a kidney transplant in the ER, you won’t get cancer treatment in the ER, you won’t get long term life care in an ER.
I doubt very highly you have ever experienced a health care crisis, a crisis where you could not get insurance because you could not afford it, or you were denied coverage because your insurance decided you were not eligible for that treatment. I doubt that a loved one was denied coverage, I doubt that you know someone who had to declare bankruptcy because of medical bills. It isn’t about cadilac care, it’s about basic care. I will say though, as a country, we are responsible for many of our ailments, we have a pill for everything, life is so fast we don’t know how to destress, eat right, take time to exercise.
Obama just wants to make sure that insurance costs don’t bankrupt america, that does not seem nearly as threatening to democracy as unchecked spying!
Actually a fair number of people come to the United States to practice medicine who have not had the same standards as Americans have in medical school. Yes, they pass the medical exam but that is considered the very basics. Having said that, I suppose all medical malpractice is excessive unless it is you, your loved one, or friend. Then all of a sudden there is the exception.
I am all in favor of policies across state lines and Canadian and Mexican medicine. I have a feeling though that if that is what the Democrats came up with, suddenly the line of demarcation would move once again.
The Obama administration’s record on “warrantless wiretapping” needs to be set straight again and again. A legal brief filed by Obama’s Justice Department effectively prevents courts from reviewing the legality of the program, and it has actually been STRENGTHENED under this new administration. This from the WSJ:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123638765474658467.html
If those “elderly Quakers” were actually ever under surveillance (and I don’t believe they ever were), then nothing has changed except perhaps the deafening silence of the left on this ongoing–and apparently legal, with Eric Holder’s blessing– issue.
@Moon-howler
You actually bring up a great point – availability of foreign healthcare workers. Additionally, the lack of medical schools in the United States and the continual lobbying of the AMA against professionals outside of M.D’s or O.D’s to practice medicine.
New medical schools are not opened in the US because of the current tie in with the Medicare system. This is a impedment on our free market system and constrains the number of doctors we can field in any year. By keeping the number artificially low we encourage professionals to charge higher rates because the supply and demand scale is tilted towards demand.
Many foreign countries that have socialized medicine also depend on foreign medical professionals as wages are controlled by the government and domestic doctors will move to other countries (including the US) to practice. They (foreign doctors) are willing to take the low wages because those wages are still higher than where they got there degrees and they can gain experience.
Elena, basic healthcare is not a right. It’s a service that is negotiatied between two parties like any other.
To say that HC is a right would then open the door to saying that the right to eat is a right as well and that farmers, producers and grocery stores should provide basic food to everyone. Our economic system would quickly collapse.
BTW, having health insurance isn’t a guarantee that you’ll get a kidney. 16 people die every day in the US because of lack of kidneys. I don’t think ability to pay is a criteria for an organ transplant but I’m not a transplant doctor so I really don’t know. I would assume that if your indigent you may be put last on the list because of poor health in general rather than income.
This year I did not get an H1N1 shot. Neither did my wife. I told anyone that would listen not to get one. If we want to drive HC costs down we need to learn to do without rather than ask for everything and anything.
If you really want ‘basic’ HC for everyone you have to be willing to accept sub-standard care for all instead of good care for most.
This all sounds way too conspiratorial for me.
Extremely high school costs is the biggest reason students don’t go to medical school.
Conversation once overheard. Two young American Federal workers discussing a complaint call to their office by a private citizen. Apparently that caller was given pretty short shrift; and, when he complained about that, he got an even shorter shrift. The two young workers were pretty huffy about how that citizen had dared to question their judgement on the matter at hand. “After all, ” one of the them stated caustically, “We ARE the Federal government!!”
In the matter of Federal power over your lives, be very careful what you wish for. This message comes from someone who was once a long-time integral part of that big and growing entity across the river. I’ve been there. I’ve lived it. I for one would NOT want to see these people involved in the decision-making about my personal health care.
Are you going to not take medicare, Wolverine?
I don’t want the govt to be making health care decisions but some controls on the insurance industry would not be a bad idea at all.
“the premise that if I have nothing to hide, who cares if the government spies on me is NOT the foundation for a free society.”@Elena
You may want to write your letter of protest to the Obama White House.
Because someone doesn’t agree with taxation doesn’t mean they won’t take every exemption available to them.
Asking for a rapist to use a condom doesn’t imply consent – it just means I don’t want to be raped twice for the same action.