Senate bill would allow states to opt out of ObamaCare…..or does it?

  Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown has introduced a bill in the Senate which has gained bipartisan support which would allow states to opt out of the federal healthcare reform law.

  Scott Brown’s bill would allow states that implement healthcare reform legislation that is either equal to or greater than the federal law to opt out of ObamaCare, thus protecting the states–such as Massachusetts–which already have laws on the books that provide healthcare reform to its residents.

  Scott Brown is doing what is right for his state as Massachusetts already mandates that all residents purchase healthcare insurance, but the fact remains that currently only Massachusetts would be eligible to opt out of ObamaCare under the bill that he has introduced because only Massachusetts currently has a law on the books that is equal to the ObamaCare mandates.

Why should Massachusetts be delayed in obtaining a waiver from the federal reform bill when it may already have met or exceeded, in many cases, the provisions of the act?” Brown asked during a floor speech in support of his bill

  As I wrote above, Scott Brown is doing his job in the Senate with the introduction of this bill, he is representing the best interests of his constituents and of his state. Why should Massachusetts residents have to pay for federal healthcare mandates when the state of Massachusetts has had these mandates on the books for several years now? Massachusetts residents would be paying twice for this disastrous concept. But the fact is that this bill does not go far enough in protecting the other states. Senators in the other 49 states should not sign onto this bill if it only protects states that implement a state version of ObamaCare.

  As a states rights advocate, I firmly believe that Massachusetts was within its constitutional right to mandate that healthcare insurance must be purchased by all residents of that state, even though I disagree with this concept. This means that I also agree that the other 49 states have the same right to do so, but they should not be coerced into do so under the guise of protecting their residents from federal healthcare mandates.

  It seems to me that this bill would be nothing more than a tool which can be used to implement healthcare mandates on a state level which would amount to nothing more than a national healthcare mandate if states pass mandates as a means simply to opt out of ObamaCare.

  What difference does it make if 50 states pass healthcare mandates simply to opt out of ObamaCare if the end result of this bill is nothing more than a national healthcare mandate implemented on the state level all across the country? The ObamaCare healthcare mandates are unconstitutional in my humble opinion and nothing less than repeal of these mandates will satisfy me.

  If the 50 states use the Scott Brown bill in order to opt out of ObamaCare by implementing healthcare mandates on a state level we are still left with a defacto national healthcare mandate and Barack Obama still would have achieved his goal of requiring every single American to purchase healthcare insurance whether they want to–or can afford to–or not.

  This bill would protect the residents of Massachusetts from the federal law, but it would require states to adopt similar laws to the federal law or adopt the federal law, as such I think that this bill would accomplish nothing but protecting Massachusetts residents while forcing other states to succumb to healthcare mandates one way or the other.

  This bill sounds good on paper but it will accomplish nothing because people will still be forced to buy healthcare insurance and this bill–much like the federal law–does nothing to bring down the costs of healthcare. I find this bill to be utterly useless and in the end I would let the Supreme Court make the final ruling on the issue of healthcare mandates and their constitutionality.