Groundhog Day for health care reform?

Incoming Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Speaker of the House John Boehner

Virginia Representative Eric Cantor is suddenly everywhere as a newly-anointed leader of  the Congressional charge to take down "Obamacare." This, just as some of the legislation's very appealing provisions (particularly for seniors) go into effect.

Cantor's bill to repeal healthcare reform is called the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.” It's up for a procedural vote this Friday, and is scheduled to be considered by the Congress next Wednesday.


So, is this a good move for Mr.Cantor politically and, actually more importantly, for Americans?


Salon ran an article yesterday on "The GOP's risky bet to repeal healthcare reform" in which reporter Andrew Leonard asks:

If the real reason for voter anger is the economy, what happens to the Republican agenda if things get better?

Toward the end of the article Mr. Leonard writes:

More health coverage is good for Americans and good for the insurance industry. The latter fact may not offer much solace to progressives pining for a true public option, but it ought to be positively alarming to Republicans. As the new healthcare rules continue to be rolled out, both individuals and industries will have vested interests in maintaining the status quo. Meanwhile, Republicans are offering nothing more than a rejection of the bill, without any solution to the underlying problem -- rising healthcare costs. Who is going to buy that?

Legislation to repeal  "Obamacare" was promised by Michigan Representative Fred Upton on Fox News Sunday. In his capacity as incoming chairman of the  Energy and Commerce committee, one of the House committees that oversees health policy, Mr. Upton crowed, “I don’t think we’re going to be that far off from having the votes to actually override a veto.” If a take down fails, however, Congress, according to Mr. Upton, will go after healthcare reform "piece by piece," by refusing to fund provisions that require funding.


Fred Upton's district includes Kalamazoo, and the Kalamazoo Gazette is running an editorial today that, after also pointing out that Upton is making these comments just as attractive new provisions of the health care bill go into effect, concludes

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has been controversial since it passed. A Virginia judge recently struck down a provision in the act and further challenges are pending.

However, there are many provisions in the bill that are beneficial to consumers. It is also equally clear that steps must be taken to stop runaway health care costs. 

Why not keep the best, most beneficial, parts of the legislation and craft new legislation to address the problems? That would make the most sense.

The path Upton and other congressional leaders are choosing will just continue the dysfunction that has wasted time and taxpayer money for the past several years. 

They should reconsider this action and seek to strategically revise, not repeal, the law.

Yesterday, Michael Falcone and Amy Walter blogged  on ABC News bout "Risk vs. Reward On Health Care Repeal." They make the point that for new, ultra-conservative Tea Party House members, their "no government health care" rhetoric meets reality squarely on the issue of their own health care.

From the DCCC’s (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) memo: “House Republican candidates affiliated with the Tea Party ran strongly against ‘government health care.’ … Despite their campaign rhetoric and public opinion, most incoming Republican Freshman will not say whether they will accept government health care.  Their silence can only mean one thing: Republican Freshman will hypocritically take government funded health care even though they ran campaigns against it.”

What I wonder is, have those of us Americans who are quick to offer our opinions on whether or not health care reform should be repealed, taken the time to understand what we're supporting or opposing.

Politics is noise; health care is real. Talk is cheap; medical care is expensive.

So, are you in favor of repeal?

Back to the future of Federalism?

Martha note: Just got word that Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has agreed to participate in a portion of Thursday's Virginia Insight. 

Tune in, call in, Thursday at 3.

I think Tom Graham reads more newspapers than anyone I've ever known except my grandfather-- and Gramps was retired. Anyway, Mr. Graham regularly sends out links he comes across that he thinks might be of interest/use to the rest of us.

The repeal amendment, as your probably know, reads,  

“Any provision of law or regulation of the United States may be repealed by the several states, and such repeal shall be effective when the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states approve resolutions for this purpose that particularly describe the same provision or provisions of law or regulation to be repealed.”

This tidbit came in Saturday. It's from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and since it's short and interesting I thought I'd just cut and paste it into this morning's blog post:

Cuccinelli defends repeal amendment

By: Olympia Meola

Published: December 10, 2010 2:17 PM

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli went toe-to-toe with Chris Matthews last night over the repeal amendment, U.S. commerce clause, nullification and the state’s health care lawsuit. 

Cuccinelli disputed Matthews’ theory that a repeal amendment would open the door to the country’s less populated states joining together to overturn federal action, saying it would require bipartisan support. The constitutional amendment would allow two-thirds of the states to collectively repeal a federal law or regulation. 

“What it’s intended to do is bring back a sense of balance,” Cuccinelli said.  

Matthews likened it to a “whiskey rebellion” on paper, “a way to take on the federal government.”  He said the effort was playing to the “nullification crowd,” which Cuccinelli emphatically denied, waving his finger and shaking his head.

“That is not what’s going on here,” Cuccinelli said, “this is being done in the process the constitution provides for.”

Georgetown Law Professor Randy E. Barrett* came up with the idea for such an amendment, and he and Virginia Speaker of the House William J Howell presented it in a September OpEd piece in the Wall Street Journal, in which they argued,

At present, the only way for states to contest a federal law or regulation is to bring a constitutional challenge in federal court or seek an amendment to the Constitution. A state repeal power provides a targeted way to reverse particular congressional acts and administrative regulations without relying on federal judges or permanently amending the text of the Constitution to correct a specific abuse.

The Repeal Amendment should not be confused with the power to "nullify" unconstitutional laws possessed by federal courts. Unlike nullification, a repeal power allows two-thirds of the states to reject a federal law for policy reasons that are irrelevant to constitutional concerns. In this sense, a state repeal power is more like the president's veto power.

Mr. Barrett's idea for such an amendment initially stumbled around like the Redskins' offense and then abruptly, according to Slate.com, gained political traction.

Now, just two months after the proposal was a twinkle in a Virginia legislator's eye, the leadership of nine states is showing interest, and the popularity of the amendment's Web site (they have them nowadays) has "mushroomed." And this week, completing the proposal's rapid march from the margins to the mainstream, Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah introduced the amendment in the U.S. House of Representatives, pledging to put "an arrow in the quiver of states." The soon-to-be House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, said this week that "the Repeal Amendment would provide a check on the ever-expanding federal government, protect against Congressional overreach, and get the government working for the people again, not the other way around." 

There's no question that such an amendment would decentralize the power structure of this country's government,  and so would be a significant re-embracing of Federalism.

Federalism, as organized in the Articles of the Confederation, was this country's initial unionizing principle, but it was ditched back in 1783 because the United States of America was on the brink of dissolution. The United States Constitution was then conceived as a compromise that would strengthen the power of the Federal Government in a way that could still garner approval from states accustomed to acting mostly in their own interests.

So back to that repeal amendment.  Do we want the politicians of our particular state, the Commonwealth of Virginia, to have more power over us and the Federal Government less?

I'd really like to know what you think.

But let's leave the Founding Fathers out of the discussion, okay? Personally, I find it so odd when people presume to speak with authority about how those guys would want this country to work in 2010 based on what worked in 1783. From what I've read about the Founding Fathers, that bunch of politicians completely understood that if a government doesn't adapt to the pressing needs of its day, there will pretty quickly be no country left to govern.

*Mr. Barnett is a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and author of  Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty" (Princeton 2005).