N.C. Republican Legislators Fight Implementation of Obamacare

North Carolina’s republican state legislators are fighting Obamacare tooth and nail. Besides filing a friend–of -the court brief that challenges the constitutionality of the individual mandate that requires all Americans to buy insurance, they have also tabled any discussions on the $12.5 million in federal grant money that is designed to setup state exchanges:

Lawmakers dropped discussion of the $12.4 million grant from the Oct. 27 agenda of a high-powered group called the Joint Legislative Committee on Governmental Operations. Agencies must consult with the committee, which House Speaker Thom Tillis and Senate leader Phil Berger run, before spending grant money in certain circumstances.

The money is for the state to do prep work for a health benefit exchange that the federal health insurance law would require of all states by 2014. With no grant money to support it, most of the work at the state Department of Insurance and the N.C. Institute of Medicine on the exchange has stopped.

The health exchanges are a central piece of the new federal health overhaul, which calls for states to set up marketplaces where small businesses and people without health insurance through their jobs will shop for coverage.

These state exchanges are designed to undermine and ultimately drive private health care providers out of business. And if any state refuses to setup one up, the federal government will do it without them; subverting the 10th Amendment and dictating to the states what they can and can’t do. You would think that is unconstitutional. But we are in the age of Obama where that document is merely laughed at.

Source: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/11/11/1634969/federal-money-waits-to-be-used.html#ixzz1dS1sXQqR