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Editorial
Legal challenges may provide time to get health care reform right
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
It's hard to cheer for lawyers, but when the other choice is politicians, what alternative do we have?
President Obama is expected to sign a massive health care reform bill today that is among the most heavy-handed measures ever imposed on American citizens. Passed during off-hours with nearly half the Congress and more of the public and a majority of Nebraskans opposed, the bill will do more to insert Washington into our every-day lives than any law previously imagined.
But more and more states are signing on to a legal challenge that may succeed in giving cooler heads a chance to craft surgical improvements to an ailing but functional health care system that would be thrown into a wood-chipper by the travesty on President Obama's desk.
Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning, who also happens to be president of the National Association of Attorneys General, said our state will join a dozen or so others already challenging the health care reform bill.
"It tramples on individual liberty and dumps on the states the burden of an unfunded mandate that taxpayers cannot afford," Bruning said.
The reform bill would violate the U.S. Constitution's commerce clause by mandating that all Americans have some form of health insurance.
"This is the first time in American history where American citizens will be forced to buy a particular good or service," he said.
Bruning and Gov. Dave Heineman, both Republicans, say they're concerned about costs, both cuts to Medicaid and the increased taxes and premiums Nebraska residents will have to pay.
State Sen. Beau McCoy of Omaha proposed a constitutional amendment this year to prohibit the state from forcing citizens to buy health insurance, or fining people for not obtaining insurance. That measure remains in committee, and is unlikely to advance, but similar legislation was proposed in at least 36 other states, and Idaho adopted its version of the bill earlier this month.
It's interesting to note that Sen. Ben Nelson, who could have killed the entire bill at an earlier juncture, now says he'll vote against the health care measure in the Senate this week, because of the federal takeover of the student loan system grafted onto the health care reform bill to improve the balance sheets, somewhat. We'll let readers fill in their own commentary on Nelson's position.
Yes, health care costs are out of control and something needs to be done, and soon. But it needs to be done in a responsible, sustainable way that doesn't trample on individual liberties and bankrupt the country in the process.