The South Carolina Senate is fast-tracking bill nullifying ObamaCare in that state, raising hope among opponents the state could become a model for others.
House Bill 3101 passed the state House of Representatives in April and now heads to the Republican-controlled Senate with special-order priority, the Daily Caller reported Monday.
If the bill becomes law, South Carolina will be the first state to exempt both citizens and businesses from living under what Democrats have insisted is for better or worse “the law of the land,” or the Affordable Care Act.
The bill’s sponsor, state Senator Tom Davis of Beaufort, South Carolina, conducted committee hearings in cities around the state of South Carolina and says the bill would legally void or make ObamaCare impossible to implement.
“It will essentially have five components to it, all of which, in my judgment, are legal, effective, and within the state’s power to do,” the Republican state senator told the Daily Caller.
The crux of the legislation prohibits agencies, officers and employees of the state from implementing any provisions of ObamaCare, otherwise known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, leaving the job of implementation solely the responsibility of the federal government, which thus far has shown gross incompetence in the bill’s administration.
Davis would agree and argues the federal government simply doesn’t have the resources or manpower to implement all of the programs mandated by the law.
“What the Supreme Court said in Printz v. United States is that states are not merely political subdivisions of the federal government, to carry out what the federal government does; they are sovereign entities,” Davis told the Daily Caller.
“Congress can pass laws, but it cannot compel the states to utilize either their treasury or personnel to implement those federal laws.”
Provisions are included in the bill that outlaw state exchanges in South Carolina, provide citizens tax deductions to people equal to the tax penalties levied by the federal government, and requires the state attorney general to sue over whimsical enforcement of the law.
The bill is expected to pass the South Carolina Senate, which is dominated by Republicans along with a sizable number of Democrats under political pressure, and be signed into law by South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a stance opponent of ObamaCare.
