From the News & Messenger regarding the local Tea Party Rally yesterday:
Stewart, a Republican, said he will ask his colleagues to approve a resolution that would prevent county employees from implementing new Medicaid regulations when they take effect in 2014.
“That is a public option that increases Medicaid to beneficiaries by more than 40 percent,” Stewart said at a Prince William County TEA Party Patriots rally at the McCoart Administration Center on Thursday.
Stewart, who seemed confident that his resolution will pass, said the county would not provide the benefits until it is compelled to.
“We will not implement those regulations until we are required to do so through injunction, which can only be initiated by the attorney general of the Commonwealth of Virginia,” he told the crowd of about 100.
Additionally, Stewart said he believes the regulations will not bear legal scrutiny.
“I do not believe they are legal,” he said about 2 p.m., when the crowd had dwindled from a high of about 200 at noon when the rally started. “I do not believe they will serve anyone.”
He continued, “I do believe that they will hurt the current beneficiaries of Medicaid—the disabled, the poor children and others—who already have difficulty finding physicians who will treat them on the low reimbursement rate.”
Stewart said the regulations amount to “unfunded mandates” that will cost taxpayers money and divert resources from other areas.
“I don’t think the county should be responsible for administering a federal program,” he said.
Still, Stewart said he didn’t know how thing would shake out legally.
STOP! Stewart doesn’t know how things will ‘shake out legally? That might be a real good question to ask before everyone jumps on the bandwagon trying to get re-elected. Injunctions are orders by a court of law to do or not do something. When the feds are involved, ‘an injunction’ can also come along with some enforcement like the National Guard or US Marshalls. Is that what we want? Another University of Alamaba situation?
