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Obama Says States Can Opt Out of Health Care Plan Three Years Early

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  • Obama Says States Can Opt Out of Health Care Plan Three Years Early

    In a nod to pressure from state governors, President Obama announced a plan on Monday to allow states to opt out of some aspects of the nation's health care reform law three years earlier than previously mandated. As currently written, the law says states must wait until 2017; the new bill would allow them to begin pursuing alternate plans as early as 2014.

    As governors across the country have waged battles to trim large deficits -- most publicly of late in Wisconsin -- the move was seen as a concession to those leaders who have criticized the new health care law and questioned its economic implications. Twenty-six governors have filed lawsuits against the federal government, claiming the law is unconstitutional.

    Sponsored by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Scott Brown (R-Mass.), and Mary Landrieu (D-La.), the bill is called the Empowering States to Innovate Act. It would give states a waiver to pursue their own health care plans -- as long as those plans provide equally comprehensive, affordable insurance coverage to at least as many residents as the Affordable Care Act provides. And these plans would have to do so while insuring that they would not add to the federal deficit, according to a White House press release.

    Obama administration officials cautioned that the bill was not to be interpreted as an effort to roll back the health care reform law. "The president has always said that states should be given enormous flexibility in how they achieve the goals of the law," said Stephanie Cutter, an assistant to the president. "It made good sense to embrace the idea to move the date."

    Cutter added that Obama remained "open to ideas" for reforming the Affordable Care Act, and cited his State of the Union address this year, where he embraced revisions to the law involving a 1099 reporting requirement and malpractice reform. But, she cautioned, the White House was "not open to refighting the fights of the last few years --or weakening the law."

    As for alternate plans, the White House outlined several possibilities, including allowing large employers to purchase coverage through state exchanges, or increasing the number of benefit levels to provide more choices for individuals and small businesses.

    The president's support of the bill has political implications at a time when many states have legally challenged the law's individual mandate, which requires most people to buy health insurance. Most of the court challenges have not been upheld, but two judges have ruled against the law in cases that will likely be decided eventually by the Supreme Court.

    Cutter said that the new bill would not affect those lawsuits. "This moves a date," she said. "It doesn't have any real legal impact on the cases being argued across the country."

    The president has never been a hard-core advocate of the mandate. As a candidate in 2008, he did not include a mandate in his health plan and expressed openness on the issue throughout the long and contentious debate that led to the groundbreaking bill's passage.

    White House officials on Monday reiterated their belief that the mandate remained the best option, but said the bill left the door open for states to develop a better plan -- and implement it three years earlier. "If someone has a better idea," said Cutter, "so be it."

    Obama Says States Can Opt Out of Health Care Plan Three Years Early

  • #2
    I like this idea. Thoughts?

    Comment


    • #3
      Obamacare is unconstitutional. Why do we need to have a new law to allow states to not follow an unconstitutional law?

      Keep government out of health care. It's interesting that liberals don't want the government in their uteruses (uterii?) but want government in every other part of their bodies.
      "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by gunnut View Post
        Obamacare is unconstitutional. Why do we need to have a new law to allow states to not follow an unconstitutional law?

        Great minds think alike! That's the same thing I said in a forum yesterday.
        "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." - John Adams

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by gunnut View Post
          Obamacare is unconstitutional. Why do we need to have a new law to allow states to not follow an unconstitutional law?

          Keep government out of health care. It's interesting that liberals don't want the government in their uteruses (uterii?) but want government in every other part of their bodies.
          Sir,

          Ever since FDR's game of chicken with the Supreme Court between threats of court packing and constitutionality of the New Deal and the precedent it set afterwards to answer your question.

          And the inverse of conservatives is true about the uterus thingy. Always interesting.
          Everybody sing this song, DooDah, DooDah

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by random_reader View Post
            Sir,

            Ever since FDR's game of chicken with the Supreme Court between threats of court packing and constitutionality of the New Deal and the precedent it set afterwards to answer your question.
            I never liked FDR...

            Originally posted by random_reader View Post
            And the inverse of conservatives is true about the uterus thingy. Always interesting.
            Small difference: conservatives believe abortion is murder. If you see a murder being in progress, would you try to stop it? Or just say "hey the murderer's right to privacy prevents me from interfering."

            Liberals don't believe (well...some do) that lack of health care is murder. It's more of an "entitlement." Not getting entitalment is not murder. See the difference?
            "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by gunnut View Post
              Small difference: conservatives believe abortion is murder. If you see a murder being in progress, would you try to stop it? Or just say "hey the murderer's right to privacy prevents me from interfering."

              Liberals don't believe (well...some do) that lack of health care is murder. It's more of an "entitlement." Not getting entitalment is not murder. See the difference?
              I see the difference and truth be told, it's way out of my uhh, "vocation," I suppose to decide when life starts so I really don't want to go deeper into that.

              Well, a better example would probably be same-sex marriage where conservatives want government out of most things but regulation of who can get married. But I just wanted to make a point that it's ironic how some things work in the world with odd topics that stand out as exception to the rule for both groups that no one could have foreseen a century ago.
              Everybody sing this song, DooDah, DooDah

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by random_reader View Post
                I see the difference and truth be told, it's way out of my uhh, "vocation," I suppose to decide when life starts so I really don't want to go deeper into that.
                I agree. We all believe abortion is murder. The only difference is timing. Some believe it's at conception. Some believe at birth.

                Originally posted by random_reader View Post
                Well, a better example would probably be same-sex marriage where conservatives want government out of most things but regulation of who can get married. But I just wanted to make a point that it's ironic how some things work in the world with odd topics that stand out as exception to the rule for both groups that no one could have foreseen a century ago.
                Not true. Conservatives don't want homosexual marriage but aren't opposed to them getting civil unions with all the rights that come with marriage. They just don't want it to be called marriage. It's the same as black people don't like others to be called "African American" even though we call came from Africa. The only difference is timing.
                "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

                Comment


                • #9
                  gunnut,

                  Conservatives don't want homosexual marriage but aren't opposed to them getting civil unions with all the rights that come with marriage.
                  that depends on which conservative you talk to. talk to the religious right and even civil unions are blasphemy. plenty of big government conservatives out there.
                  There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by astralis View Post
                    gunnut,

                    that depends on which conservative you talk to. talk to the religious right and even civil unions are blasphemy. plenty of big government conservatives out there.
                    Yes, there are always the exceptions. There are fiscally responsible liberals and big government conservatives.
                    "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by gunnut View Post
                      Not true. Conservatives don't want homosexual marriage but aren't opposed to them getting civil unions with all the rights that come with marriage. They just don't want it to be called marriage. It's the same as black people don't like others to be called "African American" even though we call came from Africa. The only difference is timing.
                      Sir, doesn't not wanting homosexual marriage pretty much require government regulation to only allow civil unions as opposed to the name of a marriage? Besides, we all came from Africa yes, but race (unless you're talking about human race) like marriage in your example is a social construct and in things like the census you are pretty much whoever you think you are. There's no legal definition or determination of race, though getting a definition would be really difficult as any credible anthropologist can attest to.

                      Regardless of the question of whether it's right or wrong for gays to call their civil unions marriage. I'd like to ask if you think the Federal government has a right to define marriage or should it be left more to various social groups to decide for themselves?

                      P.S. The literal definition of a racist means you favor humans to every other species. ;)
                      Everybody sing this song, DooDah, DooDah

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by random_reader View Post
                        Sir, doesn't not wanting homosexual marriage pretty much require government regulation to only allow civil unions as opposed to the name of a marriage? Besides, we all came from Africa yes, but race (unless you're talking about human race) like marriage in your example is a social construct and in things like the census you are pretty much whoever you think you are. There's no legal definition or determination of race, though getting a definition would be really difficult as any credible anthropologist can attest to.

                        Regardless of the question of whether it's right or wrong for gays to call their civil unions marriage. I'd like to ask if you think the Federal government has a right to define marriage or should it be left more to various social groups to decide for themselves?
                        Federal government should stay out of marriage business. In fact, all government should stay out of the marriage business. People are up in arms because a "marriage license" given out by the government can get them free stuff. You know what my views are on "free stuff."

                        Originally posted by random_reader View Post
                        P.S. The literal definition of a racist means you favor humans to every other species. ;)
                        I thought that makes you a "humanist" and "humanitarian" means you eat humans, you know, like vegetarian means you eat vegetables.
                        "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by gunnut View Post
                          You know what my views are on "free stuff."
                          I'm new here, so I do now.

                          I thought that makes you a "humanist" and "humanitarian" means you eat humans, you know, like vegetarian means you eat vegetables.
                          [/QUOTE]

                          LOL, I'm not joking when I say I laughed for a good few minutes at this.
                          Everybody sing this song, DooDah, DooDah

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Julie View Post
                            I like this idea. Thoughts?
                            Nothing is acceptable to me short of full repeal of Obamacare.

                            -dale

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                            • #15
                              if states are allowed to OP out after a certain time period, why require them to OPT in in the first place?

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