Ohio voters choose to opt out of health mandate

Asso­ci­ated Press

COLUMBUS — Vot­ers in Ohio have approved a bal­lot mea­sure intended to keep gov­ern­ment from requir­ing Ohioans to par­tic­i­pate in any health care system.

The con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment passed is largely sym­bolic, com­ing in response to the 2009 fed­eral health care over­haul, a pro­vi­sion of which man­dates that most Amer­i­cans pur­chase health care.

Sup­port­ers hope it will prompt a chal­lenge of the over­haul before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The tea party and Repub­li­can groups back­ing the amend­ment say the Afford­able Care Act was an over­reach by the Obama admin­is­tra­tion and Congress.

They hope approval of the bal­lot issue will bar Ohio from insti­tut­ing a state-mandated health insur­ance pro­gram like that of Massachusetts.

Oppo­nents argued state law can’t trump fed­eral law and that the amendment’s word­ing could unin­ten­tion­ally jeop­ar­dize state health programs.

Posted by AP News on Nov 9 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.