You might remember a recent news conference in which N.C. legislative Republican leaders announced plans to pursue a measure this year called the Health Care Protection Act. It?s designed to fight the individual insurance mandate included in federal health-care reform proposals.
The latest Newsweek discusses other state?s response to this issue:
Republicans in at least 30 states have launched bills that would reject the mandate. Earlier this month Tennessee enacted legislation that would require its attorney general to defend people who refuse insurance, and Virginia, pending the governor’s expected signature, may soon be the first state to tell residents they would not need to comply. “We’re ready to go,” says Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who has vowed (with Florida’s Bill McCollum and at least a dozen other attorneys general) to file suit against the mandate the moment it becomes law.
Federal law, of course, would override this maneuvering. But it still means headaches for the president: widespread civil disobedience, and, given that there’s no precedent for an individual mandate, the strong possibility that a challenge would wind up at the Supreme Court, where legal scholars aren’t sure the government would have a slam-dunk case. “The federal government would be doing something new,” says Jonathan Siegel, a constitutional-law scholar at George Washington University. “It’s not a trivial claim” for the states to make. “It’s not frivolous.”
Joe Coletti has offered his opinion about the North Carolina measure as well.
