Sowards: Affordable Care Act: Repeal, Yes; Replace, No

Greg Sowards

Op-ed by Greg Sowards - The voters of New Mexico should realize that “repeal and replace” is a buzz phrase which translates to more of the same “hope and change” rhetoric. Most Americans find the thousands of pages of legislation in the Affordable Care Act objectionable. The individual mandate that compels Americans to purchase health insurance, even if they don’t want it, is unconstitutional. Physicians are already warning that the rationing of health care through ethics committees or “death panels” is a disturbing attack on the rights of the nation’s aging population.

Though many provisions of Obamacare are believed to be unconstitutional by scholars and judges, alike, there are no guarantees that the courts will throw out the law in its entirety.

In the race for the U.S. Senate here in New Mexico, the websites of my Republican opponents reveal their desire to repeal Obamacare, which I find commendable. Unfortunately, they both want to replace the law with some other federally mandated and regulated program administered from Washington, D.C.

Replacing Obamacare is not “a solution” to my way of thinking. Any way you slice it, bureaucratic intrusions by the Federal Government into one-sixth of the U.S. economy is a giant step toward tyranny.

Federal programs are constantly overreaching and their costly means seldom have an end. The Founding Fathers understood the problem of centralized power and human nature. In response, they built a federalist system, which clearly limits Congress to the specific set of powers enumerated in Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. To leave no doubt as to their intentions, they reiterated that concept by adding it as the final item, the Tenth Amendment in the Bill of Rights. Read rest of column here: News New Mexico

Sowards: Affordable Care Act: Repeal, Yes; Replace, No