Show-Me Institute: Health Care Referendum "Can Only Be Considered A Political Statement"

Dave Roland of Rex Sinqefield's Show-Me Institute reacts to yesterday's approval of the "Health Care Freedom Act":

Many of the legislators and citizen groups who had worked to pass the original bill are now hailing the passage of HB 1764, implying that if the people vote to adopt this statute, it will have the same effect as the proposed constitutional amendment might have. Unfortunately, this is simply not true. Missouri voters may well use this referendum as a political statement through which they can express their opinions about the federal health care reform law, but the text that might have been legally useful as a constitutional amendment will have zero legal effect as a statute...

To be clear, I do not mean to suggest that proponents of the Health Care Freedom Act are intentionally misleading people as to the likely effect of HB 1764. But Missouri’s citizens deserve to know that the bill and the upcoming referendum it authorizes can only be considered a political statement. Even if the people adopt this statute at the August referendum, their rights and liberties will be no more secure than if the bill had been defeated.

I disagree with both Roland's belief that the federal health care reform law in unconstitutional and his assertion that Republican legislators are not fibbing about the actual impact of the vote. But he's correct he states that the August vote "can only be considered a political statement."