Cherokee Tribune – Cherokee reps plan anti Obamacare bill

Two Cherokee County state representatives announced their plans Monday to stand against the Affordable Care Act’s impact in Georgia.

State Reps. Scot Turner (R-Holly Springs) and Michael Caldwell (R-Woodstock), along with two other representatives, plan to co-sponsor a bill in the 2014 legislative session, which would prohibit state agencies from taking part in implementing the controversial health care law.

“The primary goal … is to establish a policy of non-compliance with Obamacare,” Turner said Monday, following a press conference at the state Capitol announcing the Health Care Freedom and ACA Non-Compliance Act. “In America, we’re promised that we’re free to live a life of liberty, and Obamacare flies in the face of that. It establishes a tax on simply being alive.”

The representatives will also be calling for Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens to join a lawsuit to overturn the Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of the individual mandate within the health care law and classified it as a tax. The lawsuit alleges that if the individual mandate is a tax, it originated in the wrong chamber of the U.S. Congress, according to Turner.

Caldwell said although the proposed bill alone won’t change the status of the Affordable Care Act as law in Georgia, it could help.

“If we can get sister states to adopt similar measures, then it does cause it to topple in on itself,” Caldwell said Monday afternoon, citing comparable legislation being discussed in South Carolina. “It’s a sound legal step utilizing non-compliance and legal precedents set by Supreme Court cases for 100 years now that the federal government is not able to commandeer state resources to use for their purposes.”

Because the “failed implementation” of the Affordable Care Act so far, Turner said the federal government needs state agencies to help usher the law into full effect.

via Cherokee Tribune – Cherokee reps plan anti Obamacare bill.