Anti-Fed Health Care Reform Resolution Passes Along Party Lines

02.09.2010 by Jeff Robinson

(KCPW News) A resolution urging Congress not to overhaul the nation’s health care system passed out of the Utah House of Representatives on Monday with a strict party-line vote. But Salt Lake City Democratic Representative Brian King argued the resolution is “extraordinarily ill-advised” and based on a false premise.

“It makes the allegation that the state-based system of health insurance regulation has served all interests well,” he said.  “I think that would come as a surprise to many of the hundreds of thousands of Utahns who are without health insurance at this point.”

The Joint Resolution Regarding Federal Health Insurance Reform asks Congress to avoid enacting certain health system overhaul provisions, like a public option, and to avoid preempting the state’s efforts.

Speaker of the House of Representatives David Clark said the party-line vote reflects a difference in philosophy. He believes some think government has all the answers, and others don’t. Clark, the co-chairman of the state’s health reform task force, says Utah’s approach to health reform is based on two principles:

“More individual responsibility and market-based solutions. And we’ve defined both of those and continue to work on those efforts. And I think the resolution out here today was saying that we’d like to continue to try to do those,” said Clark.  “It was a little more blatant. It was kind of a finger in the eye of the federal government, saying we think we at the state level have a better understanding of what those solutions are.”

The bill is just one of several state’s rights bills and resolutions dealing with health care, climate change and gun rights that are moving through the Legislature this session. Clark says the federal government has obliterated states’ rights with unprecedented intrusions into the public’s personal lives.