Virginia Governor: State Insurance Mandate Might Fly

From the Wall Street Journal:

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell said that, in theory, he would consider backing a state measure requiring residents to carry health insurance, even though he’s fighting a federal requirement to do the same.

Well, I suppose. I’m glad that Virginia is pressing forward with a case against a federal mandate. IF there is to be a requirement for a person to purchase health insurance simply as a matter of living, it would be better for each state to do so than the U.S. government. That would respect federalism.

But it certainly wouldn’t respect the concept of limits on government, which is the whole concept of constitutional government.

Medical-Tort Law: Ranking the States

How much do a state’s laws governing medical malpractice and other torts relevant to health care affect the availability of care?  Plenty!

Lawrence J. McQuillan’s & Hovannes Abramyan’s 2010 edition of the U.S. Tort Liability Index, which has a number of measurements included in the U.S. Index of Health Ownership, ranks states according to 42 variables.

Eight of the measurements in the U.S. Tort Liability Index are relevant to the U.S Index of Health Ownership: One output and seven inputs. The previous edition of the U.S Index of Health Ownership included six measurements of medical tort, but McQuillan & Abramyan have discovered more variables for their 2010 edition of the Tort Liability Index, allowing more detailed measurement.

As a partial update of the U.S. Index of Health Ownership, this brief analysis calculates a medical-tort index from a simple average of the eight relevant variables.  Mississippi, Nevada, Michigan, Colorado, and Louisiana lead the pack; while Vermont, Rhode Island, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Iowa bring up the rear. Even the leaders, however, lag in some measurements.

Mississippi, for example, leads on procedural rules: Pre-trial screening or arbitration and conditions on the use of expert witnesses. However, it does not limit lawyers’ ability to abuse their privilege by limiting their share of awards. Colorado and Louisiana also fail to impose limits. Unfortunately, the laggards do not show a similar pattern: The bottom five states perform poorly in all eight measurements.

Reducing the burden of medical tort is critical to increasing Americans’ health ownership and reducing medical costs that curtail our access to care. Some progress is evident, but states aiming to improve their medical-tort laws still have a long way to go.

Mandate Hinges on Constitutional Debate

Ken Cuccinelli, the attorney general of Virginia, is the first person who make the argument against ObamaCare’s individual mandate in a court of law, the Richmond Times-Dispatch noted in an editorial, which praised the AG’s lawsuit.

If the Constitution is thought to limit the authority of government to a few limited powers, then he has a slam-dunk case. But a great many today consider the Constitution nothing more than an interesting historical relic that should not be allowed to stand in the way of a government of infinite scope. We hope the former view will prevail and worry the latter might.

Virginia AG Has His Day in Court

Virginia’s legal challenge to ObamaCare is now being played out in federal court. As you might expect, lawyers from the U.S. government called for the court to dismiss the suit outright, with Virginia’s attorney general making his case.

“If the government prevails… then Congress will have been granted virtually unlimited power to order you to buy anything,” the attorney general’s statement reads. “That would amount to the end of federalism and our more than 220 years of constitutional government.”

That’s from the Virginian-Pilot. The Washington Post, meanwhile, has a link to the 41-page memo submitted to the court by Kenneth Cuccinelli, attorney general for the commonwealth. Cuccinelli says that the individual mandate is unconstitutional, while lawyers for the U.S. government say Virginia has no standing to sue.

Good News, Bad News: Virginia Enacts New Law on Telemedicine, Insurance

Good news: Telemedicine, which can be a useful tool in health care, has become more accessible to (some) people in Virginia. Bad news: It comes through a government diktat forcing insurance companies (and thus, their customers) to pay for it. The law furthers the practice of rolling routine and predictable health care expenses into insurance. Too often, health insurance isn’t insurance, but expensive pre-paid treatment that encourages wasteful spending.

If this new law struck down state regulations keeping health care professionals from offering and patients from receiving services through telemedicine, it would be worth celebrating. But this law? Not so much.

More on Virginia’s Challenge to Health “Reform”

The web site of the attorney general of Virginia has a short FAQ list about the suit over federal health care “reform.”

Health Care Petition Battle in Virginia

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s battle to stop the federal health care bill is underway. Besides his battle in court, he’s also seeking signatures on a petition to support his efforts. As the petition points out, “Buying health insurance can be said to be an act in commerce. However, if someone doesn’t buy insurance, they are by definition not engaging in commerce. This legislation greatly oversteps the Commerce Clause.”

Virginia Democrats are fighting back with their own petition, saying, in part, “We call on the Attorney General to focus on the issues that face Virginians every day — such as rising utility costs, home foreclosures, and predatory loans — rather than filing frivolous lawsuits against the federal government.”

It will be interesting to see which petition gets more signatures.

Virginia Governor Celebrates Health Care Freedom

While he formally signed the bill earlier this month, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell today celebrated the legislation at a public signing ceremony. Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has already filed suit against the federal government regarding the recently-passed health care legislation.

During the ceremony, Governor McDonnell pointed out, “There are any number of things that may be meritorious ideas in the eyes of the Congress. But they don’t have the authority to enact under our system of federalism.” It’s nice that a few of our elected officials realize this.

Virginia AG Sues

The Virginia attorney general has officially filed suit against the U.S. government over the bloated health care bill. Here’s the complaint (PDF).

As a friend of mine put it, “play ball!”

It’s Up to State Leaders Now

With the health care “reform” battle now largely over (for now) in Congress, the battle over implementation moves to the states, as the Washington Post points out:

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R) said the state will file a federal lawsuit Tuesday, an action that Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) endorsed as “meritorious.”. . .

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum (R) promised similar action that he said would be joined by other states. He called the measure that Obama is scheduled to sign Tuesday “a tax or a penalty on just living. And that’s unconstitutional.”

In all, more than three dozen states are discussing ways to challenge the federal government’s authority on health insurance. . . .

In Idaho, Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter (R) signed into law last week a bill that requires the state’s attorney general to file suit if federal health-insurance mandates become law. He said he puts “a high priority on the sovereignty of the state of Idaho.”

One Virginia scholar claims that Cuccinelli is “challenging the conventional wisdom about congressional power under the commerce clause and the 10th Amendment limits on that power.” Many of us think this conventional wisdom is wrong. At the very least, these legal challenges will help educate the public about how the view of federal power has changed over the past 225 years.