Can Colorado “opt out” of Obama Care?
Written by:
Geoff Broughton
Thursday March 11th 1:30 p.m. Judiciary Committee State Capitol (in basement)
Rep Acree’s 10th Amendment State Right’s Resolution preserving our right to opt out of Federal Health Care Legislation.
Politics today have become toxic and unhealthy where winning is more important then what is actually good for the people. Party over principle has become a reality in our recent history. We saw it with President George W Bush and the Republicans who told us they knew what was best for us with things like the Patriot Act, and we are seeing it today only this time it is President Barak Obama and the Democrats with Healthcare. Policy makers have gone from “what is right or wrong?” to the status of who ever has the power can make the rules up as they go. History and the electorate were not kind to the Republican Party in 2006 and 2008, and Democrats are displaying the same hubris seen in the Republicans before those election cycles. And while the pendulum swings back and forth, it is the people who are caught in the middle.
Today Congress is working to pass legislation that will set a new precedent in the usurpation of power, eclipsing even the Bush administration in removing the rights of the people. Congress thinks it can mandate that all citizens buy a product simply for the privilege of being alive. How much further can we drift from those self evident truths mentioned in the Declaration of Independence? “That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” And call ourselves free?
Have we truly reached a point where the Constitution is a simple speed bump to those in power whose only requirement is to reinterpret the document to mean that congress can do whatever it wants to do? Is the Constitution simply a political tool for the minority party to cry foul until it is their turn to be in power again when they lose all site of it? Where are the statesmen of today who put the good of the people ahead of party politics?
One of the justifications we hear for this mandate is Auto Insurance. That people have to buy auto insurance is held up as proof that government has this power. There are four things I ask you to consider before you make up your mind. First, driving an automobile on public roads is a privilege not an unalienable right like “life”. Second, those are state laws, not Federal, and the States have far more powers then the constitutionally limited federal government. Third, the law only requires you carry insurance to cover damages you may do to someone else, not yourself. And finally, you can choose not to drive an automobile on public roads and avoid having to buy insurance. These four facts completely invalidate this argument for anyone who considers this question objectively.
This leaves you with two very important questions you should answer before you make up your mind. First, does the Constitution allow congress to mandate health insurance be purchased by every citizen simply for being alive? Second, if the answer is no, what can be done if the Congress passes a law it is not legally allowed to pass?
To answer the first question, let us go back to the Declaration of Independence which states: “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”. Stated another way, a Government based on the principle of Justice for All gets its powers from the people, and common sense says that the people can not delegate a power they themselves do not have. So if we as individuals cannot force our neighbors to buy health insurance we cannot grant that power to the government, and a Government that assumes that power has usurped its just authority to the point where we no longer have “liberty and justice for all”.
To answer the second question, we need only look back a couple of years when the Bush administration and the Republicans in Washington passed Real ID, where the Federal Government required every state to issue a national id card complete with biometric information completely obliterating the “right to privacy” by every citizen from the government. We simply say no. The original deadline for Real ID was May of 2008; it was just extended to May of 2011. Forty-one states have failed to comply and 25, including Colorado have enacted legislation or resolutions against it. We did it then, we can do it today.
I am here today to ask the Democrats on this committee to stand up for the citizens of Colorado and follow the example of the five Democratic state senators in Virginia who crossed the party line and voted yes on a bill that would make it illegal to mandate health insurance in Virginia. Prove to Colorado that included in your ranks are the hero’s of today who can look past political ambition and break the cycle of party loyalty over the good of the people.
Geoff Broughton is the State Chapter Coordinator for the Colorado Tenth Amendment Center.
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EDITOR'S NOTE: The views expressed in the above post are those of the individual author only. The article is presented here to foster discussion, and does not necessarily represent the views or positions of the national Tenth Amendment Center.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 10:41 am. It is filed under Uncategorized and tagged with Colorado, Constitution, health Care, nullification, Politics, Tenth Amendment.
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