Another Strategy for Fighting the Health Care Reform Law

Gary Palmer and Harold See write at the Alabama Policy Institute: “This past week, Congress passed a health care act that both supporters and opponents say will put control of important aspects of our lives in the hands of the federal government. It is a mistake to think the uproar is merely about a health care act. Congress has diminished the states, making them in many ways mere instruments of its will, diminishing local freedom to experiment, and producing near fiscal bankruptcy, both to the states and the nation. At least 36 states have introduced legislation against the implementation of the act. These actions, known as nullification, fail to address the major problem and have limited chance of success. Nullification is designed to persuade Congress to alter its action; this Congress appears immune to persuasion. Other states have sued, claiming that the act is unconstitutional. These efforts will likely be futile because of the federal courts’ expansive reading of federal power. Even if they are successful, repealing one act does little to address Congress’s habitual overreaching . . . Patrick Henry wrote, ‘If there be a real check intended to be left on Congress, it must be left in the State Governments.’ A state-initiated constitutional amendment, backed by grassroots support, should be directed at restraining the abuses of the national government, thereby restoring the kind of self government intended by the Constitution.