Two Suggestions For Texas To Cut Red Tape And Unnecessary Regulations—Stop State-Mandated Rape And Stop Blocking Obamacare

The so-called Texas House Government Efficiency and Reform Committee has started a website called The Texas Red Tape Challenge.

Here is what the committee says it hopes to accomplish—

” Welcome to the House Government Efficiency and Reform Committee’s Texas Red Tape Challenge! Everyone is welcome to provide their ideas and recommendations on how to make Texas laws and regulations less burdensome. This Challenge also asks how state government can be changed for the better. Your thoughtful participation can help us cut the red tape in Texas!”

What this likely means is that you can go to this website and offer up ways for government regulations to be cut so that Texas citizens have even less protection from any number of abusive practices.

However,  I have two suggestions for the committee that would in fact protect Texans from overreaching state government and that would change state government for the better.

I suggest that women in Texas who wish to get a Constitutionally protected abortion should not be subjected to state-mandated rape in the form of the forced sonogram law.

What could be a more intrusive regulation than state-mandated rape?

I also suggest that the State of Texas stop blocking implementation of the health care reform that has been passed by Congress and been found to be Constitutional by the Supreme Court.

Health care reform–Obamacare–will help millions of Texans in the state with the highest percentage of uninsured persons in the nation. It will help the uninsured and those who are already insured.

Texas has been rated as last in the nation in the provision of health care.

For all the talk about from the right in recent years about adherence to the Constitution, there does not seem to be much respect for the Constitution from our Texas state government.

What we are seeing instead is adherence to the failed doctrine of states rights, and a revival of the Massive Resistance strategy of Southern state governments to the rightful powers of the federal government.

The State of Texas will regulate and block and obstruct until the cows come home in the name of states rights and resistance to the federal government.

On the other hand, the State of Texas will do as little as possible to address the most pressing and legitimate needs of everyday hard-working Texans.

Rick Perry’s States Rights Views Will Not Help You When You Cannot Get Health Care

Governor Rick Perry won’t be implementing ObamaCare in Texas.

From The Texas Tribune—

“Texas will not expand Medicaid or establish a health insurance exchange, two major tenets of the federal health reform that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld last month, Gov. Rick Perry said in an early morning announcement. ”I stand proudly with the growing chorus of governors who reject the Obamacare power grab,” he said in a statement. “Neither a ‘state’ exchange nor the expansion of Medicaid under this program would result in better ‘patient protection’ or in more ‘affordable care.’ They would only make Texas a mere appendage of the federal government when it comes to health care. ….The governor will appear on Fox News at 10:30 a.m. to talk more about his decision.“

Texas is first in the nation in the rate of uninsured persons and last in many measures of the provision of health care.

You would think that a so-called “pro-life” Governor would be glad for the chance to expand Medicaid to the working poor.

But Governor Perry and the extremist Texas Republican Party is more concerned with states rights/libertarian ideology than it is with helping people get health coverage from the health care reform that has been passed by Congress and affirmed by the Supreme Court.

Read here for yourself what ObamaCare will do for everyday Americans. 

Extreme states rights views will not help you when you or a family member cannot get care.

Roberts Court Upholds Mitt Romney’s Individual Mandate—How Obamacare Will Help You

The Supreme Court, with George.W. Bush appointed Chief Justice John Roberts writing the majority opinion, has upheld Obamacare.

The individual mandate was upheld as constitutional. Obamacare was constructed in large part on the individual mandate model Mitt Romney used for health care reform when he was Governor of Massachusetts.

Here is what Mr. Romney said in 2006—

“With regards to the individual mandate, the individual responsibility program that I proposed, I was very pleased that the compromise between the two houses includes the personal responsibility mandate. That is essential for bringing the health care costs down for everyone and getting everyone the health insurance they need…”

Above you see a picture of Governor Romney in Washington today.

Governor Romney is now opposed to what he not long ago very much supported.

Why would anybody believe anything he says?

Many people have legitimate concerns about the powers of government, but this law has now been maintained by a very conservative Chief Justice.

Tea Party anger will not help you when you cannot get care due to a pre-existing condition, or because you have reached a lifetime limit on your health insurance policy.

If you have so far opposed the law, please consider taking a new look at the law in light of the Supreme Court decision.

Here is the White House health care reform website.

Here are the real facts about what Obamacare will do for hard-working Americans—

• Coverage for young adults. Young adults are allowed to remain on their parent’s plan until their 26th birthday. Up to 2.5 million young adults through age 26 have gained coverage on their parent’s plan.
• Protection for seniors. The law ensures that we continue to protect seniors’ guaranteed Medicare benefits. In 2011, 32.5 million Medicare beneficiaries received free preventive services like mammograms and colonoscopies and 3.6 million Medicare beneficiaries received a discount on their prescription drugs that averaged over $600.
• Pre-existing condition coverage. About 50,000 uninsured people with pre-existing conditions have gained coverage through the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan, including people with cancer, hemophilia, and other diseases that blocked them out of the health insurance system.
• Patients’ Bill of Rights. The Patient’s Bill of Rights will put an end to some of the worst insurance abuses and puts consumers, not insurance companies, in control of their health care. For example, insurance companies will no longer be able to place lifetime limits on coverage, they will be required to cover preventive services like cancer screenings without a copay and they must spend more of your premium dollars on health care costs not administrative costs.
• Lower costs for small businesses.  Tax credits for small businesses are making it easier for them to provide coverage to their workers. In 2011, 2 million workers in 360,000 firms benefitted from the small business health insurance tax credit.

Legal Lessons From Obamacare Decision

Today’s legal lesson from the Supreme Court’s Obamacare decision—

If large numbers of people go around shouting UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!! as loudly as they can, as often as they can, in every place where they can, and for days and months on end—This still does not make what they are yelling about unconstitutional if in fact it is not unconstitutional.