Florida Senate - 2012                                    SM 1840
       
       
       
       By Senator Garcia
       
       
       
       
       40-01470-12                                           20121840__
    1                           Senate Memorial                         
    2         A memorial to the Congress of the United States,
    3         urging Congress to defund the health insurance
    4         exchanges required by the Patient Protection and
    5         Affordable Care Act.
    6  
    7         WHEREAS, on March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed
    8  into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Pub. L.
    9  No. 111-148, ostensibly for the purpose of making health
   10  insurance more affordable for American citizens, and
   11         WHEREAS, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
   12  requires the creation of health insurance exchanges in each
   13  state through which health insurance policies that meet certain
   14  requirements determined by the Federal Government may be bought
   15  and sold, and
   16         WHEREAS, these health insurance exchanges may be
   17  established only upon the approval of appointed federal
   18  officials, who are granted the authority to establish exchanges
   19  in any state that fails to win approval of its state-created
   20  exchange, and
   21         WHEREAS, the creation of state health insurance exchanges
   22  pursuant to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
   23  forces states to cede their resources and sovereignty to the
   24  service of the Federal Government and to sacrifice their ability
   25  to flexibly serve their own citizens, and
   26         WHEREAS, in a unanimous opinion in Bond v. United States,
   27  131 S.Ct. 2355 (2011), the United States Supreme Court found
   28  that federalism secures the freedom of the individual, allowing
   29  states to respond, through the enactment of positive law, to the
   30  initiative of those who seek a voice in shaping the destiny of
   31  their own times and, in doing so, rejected the notion that
   32  Americans might be forced to rely upon the political processes
   33  that control a “remote central power,” and
   34         WHEREAS, in Florida et al v. United States Department of
   35  Health and Human Services, 648 F.3d 1235 (11th Cir. 2011), now
   36  pending appeal before the United States Supreme Court, 26
   37  states, with the support of 22 attorneys general and four
   38  governors, brought a constitutional challenge against the
   39  Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on the basis that it
   40  creates an unlawful mandate requiring individuals to obtain
   41  health insurance coverage, and
   42         WHEREAS, on March 3, 2011, United States District Court
   43  Judge Roger Vinson issued an order staying his original decision
   44  in that case, which held the Patient Protection and Affordable
   45  Care Act unconstitutional, and
   46         WHEREAS, in that order, Judge Vinson noted that the
   47  severity of injury from the Patient Protection and Affordable
   48  Care Act is undercut by the fact that, irrespective of his
   49  ruling, at least eight of the plaintiff states had represented
   50  that they would continue to implement and fully comply with the
   51  act’s requirements while the case was pending on appeal, clearly
   52  implying that, as states continue to plan exchanges in
   53  preparation for implementation of the act, the perceived harm to
   54  states is reduced, making it less likely it will ultimately be
   55  declared unconstitutional, and
   56         WHEREAS, in July 2011, the United States Department of
   57  Health and Human Services published 61 pages of proposed rules
   58  regarding the establishment of health insurance exchanges, which
   59  required 172 pages of commentary and clarification, including
   60  numerous references to future rulemaking, bringing into question
   61  the proposition that states have any significant flexibility in
   62  the establishment of the exchanges, and
   63         WHEREAS, the health insurance exchanges are the cornerstone
   64  of the individual mandate that is at the heart of the
   65  constitutional challenge, and
   66         WHEREAS, if the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
   67  is struck down by the high court, states will have wasted
   68  millions of dollars of taxpayer funds in planning irrelevant
   69  exchanges that fail to serve a public purpose, and
   70         WHEREAS, despite claims by some that states can create
   71  health care exchanges that both enjoy the benefits of a free
   72  marketplace and comply with the Patient Protection and
   73  Affordable Care Act, these exchanges would be, in truth,
   74  contrived devices offering insurance products regulated in their
   75  essential characteristics by the Federal Government, in effect,
   76  eliminating the free market, and
   77         WHEREAS, the health insurance exchanges required by the
   78  Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will continue to be
   79  subject to the arbitrary whims of the federal bureaucracy that,
   80  with its ongoing rulemaking authority, can render any plan for a
   81  state exchange, no matter how rational and well-designed it
   82  might be today, obsolete and irrelevant at a later date, and
   83         WHEREAS, while the Patient Protection and Affordable Care
   84  Act does not clearly and unequivocally preempt state law, it
   85  contains only a vague provision that can be interpreted as
   86  stating that federal law will not preempt state laws that
   87  preserve free enterprise health care systems, and
   88         WHEREAS, in fact, the Patient Protection and Affordable
   89  Care Act mandates the establishment of health insurance
   90  exchanges that are required to conform to federal law, forcing
   91  states that establish exchanges to actively participate in the
   92  preemption of their own laws, and
   93         WHEREAS, states can and should develop and implement state
   94  based health reform solutions that are tailored to the specific
   95  needs of their citizens and that are free of the mandates
   96  included in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and
   97         WHEREAS, it is not in the best interest of any state for
   98  any official of that state to participate in planning or
   99  establishing health insurance exchanges as provided for in the
  100  Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, NOW, THEREFORE,
  101  
  102  Be It Resolved by the Senate of the State of Florida:
  103  
  104         That the Congress of the United States is urged to defund
  105  planning grants to states for the establishment of health
  106  insurance exchanges required by the Patient Protection and
  107  Affordable Care Act.
  108         BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be
  109  dispatched to the President of the United States, to the
  110  President of the United States Senate, to the Speaker of the
  111  United States House of Representatives, and to each member of
  112  the Florida delegation to the United States Congress.