Last year, in Arizona, a narrow defeat for Proposition 101, the Freedom of Choice in Health Care Initiative, didn’t leave its core ideas dead, or even zombie-like.
The measure’s defeat by a mere 8,111 votes didn’t seem insurmountable. After all, opponents of the measure had made hysterical claims against it, and the thinking among supporters quickly became: A little more education.
A few weeks ago, the Arizona legislature repackaged the measure’s basic ideas as the Arizona Health Insurance Reform Amendment and set it for a vote of the people next November.
The new measure accommodates some worries and criticism of the previous measure. But the core message remains. The first plank states that “a law or rule shall not compel, directly or indirectly, any person, employer or health care provider to participate in any health care system.”
The second plank says that no one shall be fined for paying — or accepting payments — for otherwise lawful health care services.
There are a lot of politicians out there, right now, who insist that “fixing health care” means “increasing government,” including pushing and shoving people into plans, or regulating the manner of payments so to encourage the use of government plans.
If this Arizona measure passes, or similar measures in other states do, a new idea will enter the national health care debate: Freedom.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
5 replies on “Thou Shalt Not Mess Up Health Care”
[…] Common Sense with Paul Jacob — Brought to You by Citizens in … […]
[…] Thou Shalt Not Mess Up Health Care […]
What? A state government actually “educating” those opposed to a bill by adding clear, easy to understand and sensible changes?
Sounds like Common Sense to me!
A TownHall and Common Sense reader
And if anyone isn’t reading Burt Prelutsky, too…shame on them! (I assume that discerning readers catch C Krauthammer, a no-nonsense realist, and M Barone, who wrote for Readers Digest back when it was a good read, as well.)
2010: Presidents generally lose members of the House and Senate in their first (and Obama’s only) term, so real Americans will vote in 2010. Yeah, you may have to hold your nose, but Obama can’t be trusted with a veto-proof Congress.
Yes give us choices not regulations, give us the ability to earn and buy our own insurance. We have way too few earners and way too many riders. Not haveing health insurance is not the problem, not haveing a way to earn is the problem.
[…] I discussed in a recent Common Sense radio spot, this proposed constitutional amendment has some interesting […]