Here’s some staggering hypocrisy on health care reform, courtesy of the Texas Attorney General.
Greg Abbott, the Texas Attorney General, has joined the federal lawsuit against health care reform, claiming government can’t order the purchase of health insurance. However, in 2009, Abbott got the Texas Legislature to give him the authority to order families in Texas to purchase health insurance for their families. As noted by Reeve Hamilton of the Texas Tribune, in 2009 Abbott was given the authority to tell parents involved in a divorce to purchase insurance from a provider the Texas Attorney General names. What’s more, in an editorial he wrote after being given the authority to mandate the purchase of health insurance for families, Abbott opined the new law would help make affordable health insurance available to hundreds of thousands of children served by the child support system but who were not covered by health insurance. In 2009, the provisions of Senate Bill 66, which contained Abbott’s desired health insurance mandate, were wrapped into an omnibus bill, SB 865, which was approved by the Texas Legislature and signed into law by the Republican Governor of Texas, Rick Perry.
So let’s recap: Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott argues in favor of a government health insurance mandate in 2009, only to turn around and argue against a government health insurance mandate in 2010. Yeah, sounds like hypocrisy to me!
Well yes and no. The 10th amendment says that the powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the States or to the people. So while the federal government can’t or shouldn’t make you purchase a private good, a state could do so. Sometimes I think liberals fail to distinguish those important differences between local, state, and federal governments.
With that said, I would also be against a state forcing me to buy a private good.
The federal government subsidizies GM, why not force everyone to buy a GM vehicle (subsidizing those lower income folks of course). Wait, government wants us riding trains, so scratch that. Well, what about newspapers. They’re hurting. The government should make us all buy subscriptions. Think of how many paper boys would be hired! Sounds like a stimulus package to me. Win-win for everybody.
Umm. forgot…I really hate to be the one to break it to you, but federalism is dead. I don’t know exactly when it died, I missed the funeral so it was probably before I was born. But suffice to say, it’s dead.
My guess is somewhere around the point where:
became the Commerce Clause instead of the Foreign Commerce Clause or Interstate Commerce Clause.
The 10th amendment should be repealed then, if that’s the case in practice anyway. I’m sure Democrat majorities would love to do that.
Bottom line for concervatives: You can’t be against the federal mandate and be FOR state government mandates. They are BOTH government mandates. Both. Government. Mandates. Understand?
This whole argument is based on partisanship, fund raising, keep the base angry dirty politics. It’s also a “legal” argument meant to be approved by a very activist conservative supreme court, and they know it.
You just proved my above point. Unless Texas has something in their state constitution to prohibit it, they are entitled to mandate it. But it’s still a bad idea.
No this is not about partisanship and fund raising. Why is it so hard for you to understand this is a true difference in philosophy about the role of government? You must find it odd that people are activists because they DON’T want a benefit, because all liberals want is more and more government-provided benefits.