I hope you are staying warm and haven't had to drive the past few days. We will have better weather soon, God willing, and then spring is right around the corner.
There have been a number of activities early in the legislative session. For a complete rundown of the major bills and appointments we have confirmed, visit the legislative reports section of my website. However, with so much happening on the health care subject lately, I wanted to give you a rundown on what I see happening on both the state and federal level that could affect you. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Kansas Health Care Freedom Legislation
On Monday, the House Health Committee had a robust hearing on both the Health Care Freedom Amendment (www.kansashealthcarefreedom.com) and the Health Care Freedom Act. I expect that it will soon receive votes in the House committee and be passed out favorably, and it would then receive a vote on the House floor. It will need 84 votes (two-thirds majority) in the House before it can proceed to the Senate. Last year it failed by 8 votes, but several legislators who voted against the amendment were defeated in the November elections.
The Health Care Freedom Amendment is a proposed amendment to the Kansas Constitution that would preserve certain existing rights that individuals have regarding health care. It is an attempt to protect the liberty of Kansas citizens to control their own medical affairs.
Key provisions would:
- Protect a person’s right to participate or not participate in any health care system, and prohibits the government from imposing fines or penalties on that person’s decision.
- Protect the right of individuals to purchase—and the right of doctors to provide—lawful medical services without government fine or penalty.
The HCF Amendment:
- Would still allow anyone to participate in a health care system they want, but it would also protect Kansas citizens from being forced into a health care system they do not like.
- Does not affect any rules and regulations in place as of August 1, 2009. It does not affect:
- Veterans’ Administration programs
- Worker’s compensation
- Medicare
- Medicaid
- State health-care systems
Citizens would have the ability to vote for the HCF Amendment on the 2012 ballot, if it passes both chambers.
Our country was founded on principles of liberty and freedom – not command and control government. It is economic freedom that helped us reduce poverty in our nation, and the Kansas Legislature should develop policy that builds proper incentives on a base of liberty. On the other hand, command-and-control policies encourage destructive behavior that increases deficiencies in systems.
Federal Health Care Legislation
Coincidentally, during this Kansas hearing, Federal Judge Vinson issued a ruling on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka, ObamaCare), brought by twenty-six states, including Kansas, by our new Attorney General Derek Schmidt.
The Vinson decision was thorough in its discussion of principles and constitutional doctrine of our United States. On the second page Judge Vinson describes the case, “It is principally about our federalist system, and it raises very important issues regarding the Constitutional role of the federal government.” Vinson then gives several quotes from James Madison, the chief architect of our federalist system, which serves to emphasize the significance that this case would have to our liberty as United States citizens.
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
The fight against federal health care control took a significant step forward with the U.S. House’s recent repeal vote. As I write this, the U.S. Senate is currently debating repeal of the law, with 47 Senators signed onto the repeal measure.
In the courts, Judge Hudson ruled that the federal health law greatly oversteps the bounds of Congress’s power, and now Judge Vinson has concluded that there is no legal basis for regulation of inactivity, ruling not only that the individual mandate to buy health insurance is unconstitutional but that the entire 2,700-page law is void.
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Judge Vinson states in the ruling, “If it has the power to compel an otherwise passive individual into a commercial transaction with a third party merely by asserting --- as was done in the Act --- that compelling the actual transaction is itself “commercial and economic in nature, and substantially affects interstate commerce…, Congress could do almost anything it wanted.” (Bold emphasis mine.)
A Washington Times story probably showcases the argument best: "In ruling against President Obama's health care law, federal Judge Roger Vinson used Mr. Obama's own position from the 2008 campaign against him, when the then-Illinois senator argued there were other ways to achieve reform short of requiring every American to purchase insurance. 'I note that in 2008, then-Senator Obama supported a health care reform proposal that did not include an individual mandate because he was at that time strongly opposed to the idea, stating that, "If a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house,"' Judge Vinson wrote in a footnote toward the end of his 78-page ruling Monday."
Finally, Judge Vinson made a statement that there is a “long-standing presumption” that the government will follow the law as declared by the court. Therefore, technically, the federal health care bill is officially no longer the law of the land. I will be watching to see how this plays out on the state level.
Health Care Legislation Reform Needed
The federal health care legislation takes away the freedom of Kansas citizens to choose and provide for their own health care, with unintended consequences, taking away individual responsibility and accountability. Past governmental policy has corrupted the efficiency of our health care system to begin with, and we need to address that corruption.
Among other things, the federal health care measure:
- creates perverse incentives
- causing costs to rise
- making health care less affordable
- encouraging government rationing of medical care
When the sharp reduction of payments to providers goes into effect, it will also cause a shortage of physicians and health care providers — more factors driving up costs.
Steps we can take that would ensure no one need suffer without essential health care:
- align incentives with natural human action
- promote personal responsibility
- create price transparency
- provide a level playing-field for competition
We should allow individuals to buy catastrophic health insurance, so individuals can be covered when there are extreme health care needs. This is the way health insurance (and other kinds of insurance) used to work, to protect people from the risk of unforeseen dire circumstances. Today, health insurance is used more for prepayment of health care services. If the federal government would block-grant Medicaid funding back to our state, Kansas government could provide Medicaid vouchers for the purchase of private health insurance. There would be a different provision at each income level to ensure that no one would lack basic health insurance because they were too poor.
Those who cannot get insurance, could get coverage from the Kansas risk pool, paying premiums based on their ability to pay. The state would subsidize the pool for the remaining costs.
Government needs to make it easier for individuals and families to have Health Savings Accounts, so they are not dependent on any employer or insurance company. People should have incentives to pay cash to their doctor for their office visits, or for any light procedures they may choose to have.
Currently, factored into the cost of health care, is a tremendous amount of bureaucracy. Employers find it necessary to hire administrators for management of health care plans, and doctors are forced to hire administrators to sort through all the insurance requirements. Today, only forty to sixty cents of every dollar actually goes towards the health care of the patient.
If we go down the path of governmental control, it will be very hard to turn things back, and we will have a system of rationing and price controls. If we go down the path of alignment with the free market system, we will promote liberty, encourage personal responsibility, competition, and have the ability to receive quality health care.
Thank you.
In honor of your liberty,
Mary Pilcher Cook
