Bringing Sanity to a Fallen World: Idaho Health Care Part 2

In a recent post, I noted how Idaho is “the national leader in bringing sanity to our health care system.”

Some conservatives, though, appealing to the rule of law, have objected to Idaho’s efforts because they are illegal under ObamaCare.

Best I can tell, though, Idaho has done nothing to violate federal law. They have simply “proposed offering a stripped-down, cheaper version of health coverage.”

In this case, the proposal highlights how the federal government, i.e., Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Executive Branch, have broken the law, i.e., violated the United States Constitution, in the passage, approval, and implementation of ObamaCare. It paints them all in a bad light, and put Trump and HHS in a tough spot. Which is exactly where we want them to be. Let them squirm a bit, as they face comments from the public like this, “It disgusts me to no end that these politicians go in there and keep telling you what they think is best for you and they don’t know nothing about you.” In The New York Times, no less.

Idaho has even upped the ante in its response to the letter from Seema Verma:

“The letter from C.M.S. Administrator Verma was not a rejection of our approach to providing more affordable health insurance options for the people of Idaho,” Mr. Otter said in a statement with the lieutenant governor and the Department of Insurance. “Her letter made it clear that Idaho’s efforts to pursue innovative alternatives hold great promise, and we believe that Idaho’s plan aligns with the State’s responsibility for ‘substantially enforcing’ Obamacare. In fact, we consider the letter an invitation from C.M.S. to continue discussing the specifics.”

This is brilliant stuff. Again, without violating any laws, they are forcing the federal government to bend over backward to figure out how they can deal with this, and all the way helping to shift public opinion against ObamaCare. And it seems to be working:

Verma didn’t entirely rule out plans such as Idaho’s, unfortunately. She advised Otter that some of the plans proposed by Blue Cross might fit within President Trump’s carve-out for “short-term” health plans. These are bare-bones insurance plans that were limited under the Obama administration to three-month terms, but that Trump has proposed extending for terms of up to a year.

“We believe that, with certain modifications, these state-based plans could be legally offered” as short-term plans,” she wrote. She invited Idaho officials to meet with her office to work out an accommodation.

It appears that Idaho could even implement its plan to allow these low-cost policies WITHOUT breaking federal law. Why? Because it is not against the law for a state to allow these policies to be offered, it is against the law for a company to sell such a policy. And if a company does offer the policy, the state appears to be under no obligation to enforce the federal law: “If a state fails to enforce the law, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has a responsibility to enforce these provisions,” says Ms. Verma.

The legal term for this concept is commandeering. The United States can not “commandeer” states to enforce federal law. If the state’s don’t want to enforce the law, such as in the case of health care of marijuana, then the federal government can ignore the violations–as it has been doing with marijuana–or it can enforce the laws itself.

What Iowa is doing already is starting to change the discussion. Add to this what Arkansas and other states are doing:

Arkansas will be the third state (eight additional states have submitted work proposals and nine others have signaled interest in the requirements) to require many Medicaid recipients to work or train for jobs, after the Trump administration granted it permission on Monday.

But the administration held off on approving another request from the state that could have much broader consequences for the future of the program — a proposal to cut back the expansion of Medicaid (Massachusetts is also trying to do this) that was instituted under the Affordable Care Act.

We are seeing what is potentially a dramatic change in the political landscape on health care. All driven by the states. And without anybody (except the federal government) breaking the law. Which is kinda how this country got its start.

Christians can learn from this. While there may be times, as was the case with the founding of our country, that citizens through state governments may oppose tyranny by declaring the tyrant illegitimate, Iowa has shown us a way of effectively opposing tyranny without having to grapple with the full teaching about submission to government raised in Romans 13.

p.s. In researching this issue, I ran across this really good article explaining how not all of what Iowa is doing on the health care front is good. Still, some good things are happening up there.