Despite the testimony from Idaho's (Republican) attorney general that a proposed law nullifying the Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional, the House State Affairs Committee voted 14-5 last week to approve the bill. One Republican lawmaker on the committee joined with four Democrats:
One GOP lawmaker, Rep. Eric Anderson of Priest Lake, joined four Democrats in opposing the bill Thursday.
Anderson said he believes the 2009 federal health care law should be dumped. But he was swayed by a state attorney general's opinion - as well as constitutional arguments from scholars - that Idaho has no legal standing to nullify federal laws.
"It's an outright defiance of the law," Anderson said. "If we vacate that rule of law, we simply become nothing but a collection of states that decide among themselves that they're going to nullify everything that's inconvenient to them."
The majority, however, were in league with one of the know-nothing teabaggers in attendance at a hearing on the law: "I wasn't going to speak until I heard the self-proclaimed scholar," Bruce Nave, a resident of rural Sweet, north of Boise, told the panel. "We as citizens are tired of being lorded over by representatives. We're not conspiracy theorists. We aren't kooks. No one is going to force me to buy anything." Law, schmaw. If I don't agree with it, the hell with the rule of law.
This "the hell with the Constitution" aspect of the nullification effort--alive and well not just in Idaho but in eleven others states--is disturbing, particularly coming from people who are making laws. But the implications for the real impact on millions of low-income Americans is downright appalling. Because of this:
Additional Medicaid funding could also be jeopardized by passage of the nullification bill, according to the Idaho attorney general's office.
"This could create a situation where individuals presently covered would no longer be covered, yet still require medical treatment, which likely would be required to be provided for and paid for through some non-federal means," wrote Assistant Chief Deputy Attorney General Brian Kane. "This situation, in turn, could create an intense burden on the State's budget."
That would create not just an intense burden on the State's budget, but 215,000 people--many children--without access to affordable healthcare, just in Idaho. The AARP released a Nullification by the numbers brief, "to remind legislators and the public just what's at stake":
- 18,000 seniors, who've hit the prescription drug coverage gap in Medicare, known as the "doughnut hole," could lose relief provided under the federal law, forcing many to go without needed Rx.
- 6,520 younger uninsured state residents, whom the law currently helps to have health care coverage by staying on their parent's insurance plans, will likely lose their coverage.
- 212,000 older Idahoans would lose free preventative health screenings through Medicare, meaning many would be subject to higher costs for largely preventable illnesses. Leaving a higher health care bill for the state.
- 857,000 Idahoans could face being kicked off their health care plans once they hit the lifetime limits the law currently eliminates, pushing many into emergency rooms for basic health care. Resulting in billions of dollars in uncompensated care and shifting higher insurance premiums onto everyone else.
- $1.5 billion loss in federal matching funds for Medicaid, which could result in the loss of thousands of health care jobs in Idaho.
- 215,000 Medicaid enrollees forced from the program, leaving the state to provide the services at a great financial burden. Hospitals would also no doubt see emergency room admissions soar, and state residents would bear the cost of uncompensated care in the form of increased insurance premiums.
Multiply those numbers by 12 for the other states and you create some very serious pain, particularly almost all of these states have been hit hard by the recession and already have high levels of unemployment and poverty. For the teahadists, however, getting government off their back is a higher priority than whether their fellow citizens live or die from lack of access to basic healthcare.