H2 veto override vote any day
Democrats and Republicans unanimously agreed to a rule change last Thursday that would allow another vote
at any time to override Gov. Bev Perdue’s veto of the Freedom of Health Care
Protection Act.

Gov. Perdue said she would let the bill become law, but instead vetoed it after
a visit to the White House and a letter from pro-ObamaCare AG Roy Cooper.

Last Wednesday, the House failed to override the veto and even lost one of the
Democrats who voted for the law. But Thursday, Democrats left Raleigh early,
having been assured nothing would happen in the afternoon. Enough left town
that Republicans could have shoved through an override on a purely partisan
vote. Fair play won out and now Republicans can have their vote any time if
Democrats don’t show up for work, as Speaker Thom Tillis warned.

ObamaCare Exchanges
While the House decided to
take its time on overriding Gov. Perdue’s veto, it is rushing headlong to
create an ObamaCare exchange. But nobody really seems to know what an exchange
is supposed to do. Is it to provide a "marketplace" to purchase
insurance? Is it to be an information portal on the insurance policies
available? Is it to limit the insurance products available? Is it to supplant
and expand the high-risk insurance pool known in North Carolina as Inclusive Health? Is it supposed to
direct subsidies to those who qualify and kick the poor into Medicaid?

Most of these functions can or already are being handled in the private sector.
You can shop at ehealthinsurance.com,humana-one.com, or bcbsnc.com for individual policies that may
cost less than what you get through your employer.

Not since ObamaCare itself has health care legislation been debated with so
many unanswered questions. The federal Department of Health and Human Services
has not provided guidance on key questions about what exchanges should do and
how they should do it.

But not to worry, the local ObamaCare boss, Insurance Commissioner Wayne
Goodwin, has offered to run the
exchange
by appointing four of seven members of an exchange’s board of
directors. In the funhouse world of ObamaCare, this is called a compromise.

There is no reason to rush an exchange. If North Carolina is to have an
exchange, legislators need to understand what ObamaCare requires it to do, what
they want it to do, and what the best ways are to meet those goals.

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