Governor Gary Herbert gave an impassioned speech at Heritage while I was interning there about the principle of state’s rights and how Washington is interfering on those rights with the new monstrosity of a law known as Obamacare. He described the law as “the biggest social change since FDR” and that it is “the most divisive issue since Vietnam.”
He proposed to his fellow governors (especially Republicans) to step up to the table and take charge in this debate of federalism and went as far to say that “states should be laboratories for democracy.” He also showed how the current administration views state’s rights: not very highly. Governor Herbert said that the “governors and states have not been invited to the table” for the discussion on healthcare reform and frankly, that’s simply not acceptable.
All of this goes to show what a catastrophe this massive bill is and will be, and as Governor Herbert emphasized, no one knows really what the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) contains, even though we already passed it (I guess Pelosi was wrong yet again), and how it will affect them mainly because it calls for hundreds of new regulations that are yet to be written by unelected bureaucrats. The states, and its people, need to restore federalism in this country and oppose any measure that infringes upon a state’s right to sovereignty.
The founding fathers preached the importance of federalism in the Constitution, specifically with the tenth amendment, which reads:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
There is no doubt that our current health care system is currently in serious need of repair, but a “one-size-fits-all” solution is not viable. This country, and its states, is too diverse to say that one solution works well for all involved. The states can, and will, find appropriate solutions for their own unique healthcare needs and do not need the federal government to tell them how to do it. As one Democratic governor said “Keep…out of my state!”
We could all take a page out of Utah’s playbook as they are seeing an economic growth rate of around 4% having implemented an insurance exchange market five years ago. It’s amazing what the free market can do.