The future of Obamacare is unknown and while complete repeal is unlikely, major reforms to the law seem much more possible now thanks to a vote in the Show-Me state that sent shockwaves throughout Washington and the ruling political class.
Proposition C was a largely symbolic measure reaffirming the right of Missourians to choose their own healthcare or not have healthcare at all, sharply challenging the federal government’s infamous mandate in the new healthcare law that forces all Americans to buy health insurance or face steep criminal penalties.
Missourians not only rejected Obamacare in the August primary vote—they made their feelings heard with landslide margins. Over 71 percent of Missourians voted for Proposition C, expressing their opposition to the healthcare law, versus only 29 percent who support the current law. And a sign of the intensity of the opposition to the new law is the number of people who voted on the ballot question statewide: 942,570 Missourians, 40,000 more than who voted in the expensive and closely-watch Democratic and Republican primaries for the high-profile U.S. Senate race this fall.
Arizona and Oklahoma are already crafting similar measures to give their populations an opportunity to opt-out of the government mandate. And you know the mandate is in trouble when former Democratic presidential candidate and liberal Dr. Howard Dean is blasting the mandate and predicting it will be found unconstitutional.
Never before in the history of our great republic has the federal government mandated that Americans buy a good or service or face criminal penalties in the way of fines or incarceration. Liberals like to compare the health insurance mandate to auto insurance mandates, but this comparison is insufficient because #1: No one is required to own a motor vehicle, and auto insurance can be correctly seen as part of the cost and responsibility for purchasing a car, just as a physician is required to carry liability insurance to practice in their field and an attorney is required to maintain an active law license, and #2: auto insurance is a state mandate—not a federal mandate.
Traditionally, in our federal system of governing, states have been afforded more power to compel citizens to adhere to certain regulations and requirements. Our Constitution does not endow the Federal government with this same authority to compel and coerce. So unlike auto insurance or any state mandate, under the new healthcare law, Americans, by virtue of just being born and alive in this country would be forced to carry health insurance irrespective of any other factors.
Americans still retain some of that rugged individualism passed down from our ancestors, the first colonists and settlers of this country, and we really do not like being told what to do. With approval polls showing over 50 percent of Americans still in opposition to the healthcare mandate and favoring appeal, you can be sure that Americans will soon express their disapproval with their own “mandate” to the federal government—a mandate for change this November, the first step to repeal of the most onerous and heinous provisions of the new healthcare law.
Posted by: Brandon Kenig, Forum and Social Media Director, RIGHTWING.COM
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