Freedom is the cornerstone of Wyoming and America. Nothing is more personal than your health and health care.
Everyone wants health care reform. We all want costs reduced and better care provided for those who are least advantaged.
It is of paramount importance that personal liberty be respected in health reform. No matter how "necessary" some may deem it; it never, ever, makes sense to take rights away from one citizen to confer the guise of safety to another.
Unfortunately this is precisely what some individuals want to do with health reform. Either by government mandate, enforcement of the dictates of a government panel of "experts" or even simply the rationing of health care, your right to make decisions about your health and health care is being eroded.
The cornerstone of health care reform must be the protection and preservation of the rights of people to make their own health and health care choices.
Without that protection, lobbyists, bureaucrats and politicians will create rules and regulations that make it harder and more difficult to get any health care without the approval and authorization of the government and special interests.
Wyoming's Health Freedom Act safeguards the personal liberty of every Wyomingite by preventing government control of your health and health care decisions.
The Health Freedom Act says simply, "Health care reform, yes, but PROTECT FREEDOM FIRST!"
On Election Day, Arizonans can give the nation the gift of a good example. They can enact a measure that could shape the health-care debate that will arrest or accelerate the nation's slide into statism. Proposition 101, the Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act, would put the following language into Arizona's Constitution: [More...]
Today Wyoming's Future will ask the candidates for Governor of the great state of Wyoming to join us in asking the majority leadership to call a special session to pass the Health Care Freedom Act.
The Health Care Freedom Act, if passed will give the voters of Wyoming the chance to determine the future of our great state.
We believe that any candidate for any statewide office who supports the Health Care Freedom Act is a candidate worthy of your vote. The candidates that demand a special session are also worthy of your time and treasure to make sure they are elected this November.
We are asking each gubernatorial candidate to sign this letter:
June 9th, 2010
Honorable Representatives and Senators,
On a daily basis the federal health care reform passed by Congress is proving to be an albatross that will be nothing but trouble for the people of Wyoming. By large margins the people of Wyoming do not want the health care reform to stand as with every minute that passes the unchallenged health care reform exposes Wyomingites to ever increasing costs, compliance burdens and maddening frustration while we wait for real reform that may never come.
There is hope: The Wyoming Health Care Freedom Act.
We request that at the earliest possible convenience, a special session of the Wyoming Legislature be called to pass the Wyoming Health Care Freedom Act. If passed the Wyoming Health Care Freedom Act will place an amendment to the Wyoming constitution on the ballot this November. The amendment preserves the right of every citizen to make his or her own health care decisions.
By calling a special session and passing the Health Care Freedom act you will be giving the people of Wyoming control of their state, their lives and their liberty.
Teddy Roosevelt said 125 years ago in Dickenson, North Dakota:
Here we are not ruled over by others as in the case of Europe; here we rule ourselves…When we rule ourselves thusly we have the responsibilities of sovereigns, not of subjects. We must never exercise our rights either wickedly or thoughtlessly; we can continue to preserve them in but one possible way, by making the best use of them.
Right here, right now we the people of Wyoming deserve the opportunity to make the best of our right to vote and act as the sovereigns of our state Please allow Wyoming Citizens to decide if the right to make our own health care decisions is worth defending or yielding to the federal government.
Please call a special session of the legislature and place the Health Care Freedom Amendment on the ballot this November.
The two most frequently asked questions about the Health Care Freedom Act are, “Will it work?” and is “Is it constitutional?”
The answer to both questions is an undeniable, ‘yes’.
The Wyoming Legislative service Office (LSO) prepared an excellent memo regarding preemption of state laws and constitutional provisions by federal law.
The memo ultimately reaches a conclusion that says “a state cannot, by statute or by constitutional amendment, override a valid federal statute or mandate.”
This is accurate as far as it goes, however it only starts the legal conversation. It does not complete it. If it did, then any time there was a clash between state and federal laws, the federal government would always win. But the federal government doesn’t always win, as illustrated by Horne v Flores, 08-289 (2008) where Arizona challenged setting its own educational preferences over federal objection, and Gonzalez v Oregon, 546 U.S. 243 (2006) where Oregon won its challenge over federal objection concerning euthanasia.
So where does that put the Health Care Freedom Amendment? The answer to that can be found in the Wyoming and United States Constitutions. Wyoming’s constitution contains two relevant sections: (Article 1, Section 37) which declares that the Constitution of United States is the supreme law of land; and (Article 7, Section 20) which states “As the health and morality of the people are essential to their well-being, and to the peace and permanence of the state, it shall be the duty of the legislature to protect and promote these vital interests by such measures for the encouragement of temperance and virtue, and such restrictions upon vice and immorality of every sort, as are deemed necessary to the public welfare.” The only way these two clauses can coexist in the same document is if (Article 7, Section 20) reserves to the state, by the 10th amendment of the United States Constitution, primacy on health and health care statutes and mandates.
This 121 year old tenth amendment claim has two significant consequences. First, the State of Wyoming has long held that health and health care are state issues reserved to the state by the 10th amendment. As such Wyoming has the power to make declarations, especially by constitutional amendment involving a vote of the people, to declare an individual right concerning health care. Second, the federal government cannot suddenly ride rough shod over constitutionally declared duty of the legislature to promote and protect the health and morality of the people because it now suits them to do so, regardless of any novel and expansive reading of the commerce and supremacy clauses of the US Constitution.
When the two relevant clauses of the Wyoming constitution are combined with the US Supreme Court ruling in Gonzalez v Oregon, and a general election to ratify the amendment, it is clear that the Wyoming Health Care Freedom Act would have a solid foundation to show that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is not a “valid federal statute or mandate.” at least in its application to Wyoming citizens.
A more general discussion, beyond the Wyoming specific basis for the Health Care Freedom Act can be found in a question and answer memo prepared by the Goldwater Institute in Arizona.
Additional analysis explaining the need for an amendment to the constitution is required as opposed to passing a statue is available in this memo.
Support for a special session of health care appears to be growing throughout the state.
More citizens are talking about the need for the special session. Dedicated Wyomingites are joining the fight and spreading the word through new websites like www.WyoSpecialSession.com. Support is building.
Missouri became another state to pass a version of the Health Care Freedom Act.
Rationing hidden in health care reform...and that isn't from health care reform bill's critics. It is direct from Peter Orzag, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
What is worse it will literally take an act of Congress to override the decisions of the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). The IPAB is an unelected board that will decide what insurance can and cannot pay for under the new health care scheme.
Here is Peter Orzag on how rationing will work:
Remember how Speaker Pelosi famously claimed that they had to pass this reform in order for us to see what's in it? In two days we have found that insurance will cost us more and we will no longer have the ability to get the medical care we choose.
Contact your Wyoming state representatives and senators and tell them to put a stop to Washington's interference with our health care. Persuade them to support the Wyoming Health Care Freedom Act.
Not to any one's surprise, yet another review of the health care reform passed by Congress will only increase your health insurance costs.
Read the USA Today article for more evidence that government controlled health care isn't in the interest of Wyoming or her citizens.
We all want health care reform. We all want health care to cost less and be available to more citizens. We all want to help those that are the least advantaged in our society. This government study shows once again that letting the government make choices for you won't achieve those goals.
Support the Wyoming Health Care Freedom Act.