Governor Of Idaho Takes Action Against Obamacare
April 22, 2011
Idaho Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter has unveiled an executive order that prohibits the State from implementing Barack Obama's healthcare reform law.
Otter issued the mandate on April 20 after he vetoed a bill that was designed to nullify the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The governor rejected the legislation because he said that it would have forced Idaho to forgo the creation of a State health insurance exchange, thus allowing the Federal government to intercede and carry out their own plan.
In his executive order, Otter says that no executive branch department or agency is allowed to "establish or amend any program or promulgate any rule to implement any provisions of the PPACA," quoted by CNN.
Idaho is among 27 States that have sued the Federal government over Obamacare, charging that the individual mandate — which requires Americans to buy insurance by 2014 or face financial penalties — is unConstitutional. Federal judges in Florida and Virginia have affirmed that stance.
During a town hall meeting in California on April 20, Obama said that the slow process of passing the healthcare reform may have prompted some Americans to reject the plan. The bill was signed on March 23, 2010, about 14 months after the President took office.
Obama speculated that some citizens were so turned off by the "typical Washington bickering" that they began to question the law's merits, according to CBS News.