Republican state Sen. Mike Rose has a serious message for South Carolina lawmakers: if you don’t vote to let states take over Medicare from the federal government, the ghosts of your Confederate ancestors will be very angry with you when you meet them in Heaven.
In a debate Wednesday afternoon over legislation that would authorize South Carolina to effectively nullify all federal health care laws, Sen. Mike Rose told legislators who opposed the bill:
When you get to Judgment Day and see our maker, and we see all these other people — our ancestors who fought in the confederacy for states’ rights when nullification did not work, when the Civil War did not work — how will you look them in the eye?
This legislation which supposedly has our dead Confederate forefathers so up in arms is called the Interstate Healthcare Compact, which would allow South Carolina “to suspend the operation of all federal laws, rules, regulations, and orders regarding health care that are inconsistent with the laws, rules, regulations, and orders adopted by the member state pursuant to this compact.”
State autonomy of programs like Medicare and Medicaid would allow South Carolina to change eligibility standards and reduce services, cutting payments to providers and shifting costs onto the poor and elderly.
“Medicare has been in place long enough that people are comfortable with it, and I’m not going to vote to change it,” said Democratic Sen. Brad Hutto, who argued that since Republicans deride President Obama’s Affordable Care Act as “Obamacare,” the Republican health care takeover in South Carolina should be called “Haley-Don’t-Care.”
As a compromise, Sen. Hutto successfully introduced an amendment which would require that any action the state takes with regard to Medicare needs to be specifically voted on by the legislature. The amendment passed 37-1.
As lawmakers voted 24-13 to give the amended bill a third reading, Democratic Sen. Phil Leventis accused many on the right of looking through rose-colored glasses at the country’s health care system.
“To defend this system and say an individual can make their way through this labyrinth of private health care companies is just a sham,” Leventis commented, adding that the idea of giving a massive federal health care system over to the states is ridiculous.
“Do we want a national defense based on the resources and actions of individual states?” he asked. “Fine me one country that does that, and then we can talk about it.”
Note that the “interstate Health Care Compact” is brought to you by our legislators that are the stooges for ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, whose corporate sponsors are now fleeing because ALEC is also the source of most of the Voter ID laws and “Stand Your Ground” laws.
Yikes! Who knew that our Maker was, and still is, a by-God Johnny Reb? Just makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, doesn’t it? Darned if I’M willing to be upbraided by the Lord over a silly thing like universal health care. (And just think of all the divine scoldings already heaped upon other developed countries who did not see the light in time to avoid the evil of democratizing health services!)
Um, Sen. Rose? — It’s over, and if the Lord was pulling for the Confederacy, He sure fooled the soldiers … and the slaves. You need to get out of the house (or maybe out of the Assembly) more often, and pay a little attention to people who don’t look like you.
Organizations like ALEX depend upon uneducated and uncritical voters to swallow their hogwash. I won’t be surprised to learn in time that their funding also supports the anti-public education “round table” coming up in Columbia, being touted by The Emptiest Head in the U.S. Senate, a Luddite relic elected by the most poorly educated and least critical electorate of the 50 states.
Here’s a link to a healthier point of view appearing in 4/13 Post and Courier, reprinted from 4/11 WaPo: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-millionaire-for-higher-taxes/2012/04/11/gIQA07jLAT_story.html
Nullification? The ghosts of our Confederate ancestors? Really?
Did Senator Rose check his brain at the Statehouse door?
Wow! I guess I never thought that we would have to again deal with the notion of nullification. But that is exactly what the Interstate Healthcare Compact is all about. It allows South Carolina to nullify any federal actions regarding health care if they contravene laws, orders, regulations and orders that have been “adopted by” the state; i.e., the legislature.
This is somewhere just beyond belief! And far, far beyond the intent of the Tenth Amendment.
Were I the federal government, I would, as soon as these fools passed such a piece of truly un-American nonsense, establish all federal highways in South Carolina as toll-roads, close down all the military facilities in the state, shut down all federal offices, shut down all federal monies coming to the state, no longer allow South Carolina to be represented in Congress, and, for lack of a better way to put it, simply allow the state to, well, become a country in and of itself. Want to make your own rules as opposed to constitutionally-charged, publicly-elected officials acting in accord with the Constitution of the United States? Okay, you’re on your own. We’re not going to wait for you to secede. This time, we’re kicking you out!
Because, if a state can nullify federal mandates regarding health care, what keeps it from nullifying federal mandates on anything else? And, since disregarding federal mandates you don’t like raises questions as to when the Union can count on you and when it can’t, it seems in the Union’s best interest to just, well, kick you out!
I know! I’m over-the-top apocalyptic on this one. But, really, nullification??
Wow!