The Tenth Amendment and What it means to Obamacare
Al Ritter
In much the same way that States power reigns supreme in
regulations on firearms, Healthcare is regulated by the very same Amendment.
Amendment X (1791)
The powers not
delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
In other words things not mentioned in the Constitution
follow under States jurisdiction.
As a result each state legislature mandates what things
have to be covered by insurance companies to residents of their state. At last
count 66 things have to be covered by insurance companies under Maryland law.
People are mistakenly under the premise that buying insurance in another state
will save them money somehow. For instance if Iowa had say had only 10 mandates
required of insurance companies and Maryland had 66, whose insurance do you
think would be cheaper?
We already “buy over state lines,” if you think about it,
the main office for your insurance company is most likely in another state
already. Sadly that means nothing, because that out of state company has to
adhere to your state’s mandates to do business there.
The Affordable Care Act changed some basic premises about
healthcare in America, first by a simple
Majority vote Congress has bypassed the tenth Amendment
by removing State Sovereignty in the matter of healthcare. As part of the ACA,
the federal government has also added their own mandates to your states
mandates. Some of the mandates may overlap, some may not. One thing IS for
certain though…..NO mandates have been removed!
As you can now see, buying health insurance over state
lines would require even more intervention by the federal government. They
would have to override every state’s individual mandate and come together with
federal mandates to make every state come into compliance. If every state then
had the same mandates chances of one state’s premiums being lower than another
are less likely.
Unless the federal government changes MAJOR things
regarding healthcare and reduces State’s Sovereignty even more nothing will
change. As you can see, we are chasing Unicorns people!
