A fairly recent story that hit national news was the Hobby Lobby fight against the Affordable Care Act mandate requiring that the insurance a company provides must also provide coverage of contraception. This ended in a victory for Hobby Lobby and other closely-held businesses or family run businesses, that is, businesses with very few owners, where the Supreme Court ruled that these types of businesses could be exempt from providing such contraception from employee medical insurance plans under a religious freedom principle.
Now why am I talking about this on a Texas blog? Because, I believe Texas should use everything in its legal power to fight the mandated Affordable Care Act. The fact that Hobby Lobby had to fight a mandate of the Affordable Care Act using religion of all things as a defense shows that individual liberties and the liberties of those who own businesses, large or small, have been seriously undermined. People, by nature of their individual rights, should be free to choose what healthcare plans they wish to take part in or offer to their employees as a bargaining tool, if they wish to or not. Under the individual mandate, you are penalized financially for not having some sort of healthcare plan, as well if your employer offers a healthcare plan then they must follow certain guidelines whether they agree with it or not. You see, the ACA supports freedom until you want to say "No" and at that point you can't call it freedom.
Back to Texas. What can we do? For starters we can follow in South Carolina's footsteps and try to create legislation that effectively nulls the mandates of the ACA. For example, Texas voters and legislation can support Gov. Perry, something I don't say often, in the fight against receiving medicare funds that would expand the program, which is causing more national debt, more of a welfare state and a significant decrease in quality medical care. Legislators can also provide tax deductions that combat the individual mandate tax as well as prohibit the use of state employees and agencies to implement such laws, effectively leaving the job in the hands of the federal government which cannot feasibly implement them.
In a speech given by Dr. Leonard Peikoff, former President of the Ayn Rand Institute, entitled Healthcare is Not a Right, he describes that the battle over healthcare reforms is indeed a moral issue. That those who claim that "Healthcare is a Human Right" or in this case "Health Insurance is a Human Right" are effectively stating that some people, namely doctors, businesses that offer healthcare plans, and insurance companies, should sacrifice time, effort and finances for something that may or may not agree with because many people cannot afford healthcare plans that are so complicatedly inflated by government controls on the healthcare industry and on the insurance industry. In short, when someone claims they have a right to something that is produced by others they claim a "right" to their life. As a proud Texan and a prouder individualist, I say governmental force on innocent citizens is something to be fought and it is within our power to do so.
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