Obamacare nullification

A bill focused on nullifying “Obamacare” was approved by the Oklahoma House of Representatives last week by a vote of 72-20.

State Rep. Mike Ritze, a board-certified family practice physician and surgeon – the author of the legislation – filed House Bill 1021 to nullify the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare in Oklahoma.

Ritze, R-Broken Arrow, said the measure protects Oklahomans against an unconstitutional federal overreach in power and control over their daily lives.

“There is no provision in Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution where the states delegated to Congress the authority to make a citizen purchase health care or pay a fine,” Ritze said. “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is an example of federal overreach and my legislation will authorize the state via the will of the people to ignore it and ban the enforcement of it.”

Proponents of “Obamacare” argue that Article VI of the Constitution makes the legislation the “supreme law of the land.” Ritze strongly disagrees with that belief.

“They fail to understand how the country is supposed to operate,” Ritze said. “As Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 33: ‘It expressly confines this supremacy to laws made pursuant to the Constitution.’ Alexander Hamilton got it right. Congress and the Supreme Court got it wrong.”