Health-care overhaul stirs states' rights murmurings

In more than a dozen statehouses across America, including Utah, a small but growing group of lawmakers has been pressing for state constitutional amendments that would outlaw a crucial element of the health care plans under discussion in Washington: the requirement that nearly everyone buy insurance or pay a penalty.

Utah Rep. Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman, said Tuesday he plans to bring the issue before lawmakers in the 2010 legislative session that begins in January. But he said he is rethinking attempting to amend the Utah Constitution as he first suggested last month because he's not sure the votes are there.

Instead, Wimmer said, he'll likely push for a new law that would only require the support of a simple majority of House and Senate members. A constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds majority of lawmakers as well as the approval of voters.

A new law restricting the federal government from placing new health insurance mandates on Utah would accomplish the same goal sought by every state involved in the effort, he said, which is "to band together and fight what we see as the improper role of the federal government in health care" in court.

"I believe that is a challenge that the citizens of this state are willing to take on," said Wimmer, a founder of Utah's conservative Patrick Henry caucus. "If we win, it will save a lot more money than if the federal government is running the health care system."

He said Utah was already working on its own version of health care reform and "that's exactly where health care reform should be coming from, is the states."

House Speaker Dave Clark, R-Santa Clara, co-chairman of the state's health care reform task force, said it's too soon to say what might happen next session. But Clark said even though Utah faces a hefty budget shortfall next year, if Congress comes up with a proposal that would be "forced down the throat of America including the state of Utah there may be an appetite to push back and see what we can do."

Across the country, lawmakers suggest that approval of such measures resisting a health insurance requirement would set off a legal battle over the rights of states versus the reach of federal power — an issue that is, for some, central to the current health care debate but also one that has tentacles stretching into a broad range of other matters, including education and drug policy.