Editor’s Note: The following column was submitted by Nerve Citizen Reporter Brit Adams of Oconee County.
In South Carolina we are at a fork in the road. We can either give up all our rights and freedoms, lay down our arms and become slaves of the state by allowing the implementation of Obamacare here. Or we can stand up and be men and women like our Founding Fathers, and fight.
We have legislators who either don’t respect or don’t understand the Constitution. Rep. Bill Sandifer, chairman of the House Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee, said, “The Supreme Court has already ruled; Obamacare is the law of the land.” He clearly does not comprehend that states have the final word according to the 10th Amendment. It makes me ask the question, “How are you passing laws when you don’t even understand the Constitution?”
Rep. Greg Delleney, the House Judiciary Committee chairman, said, “We can’t stop all of Obamacare.” Is there a real lack of knowledge or are there ulterior motives?
Shamefully, we have to investigate the motives of our legislators and question whom they are working for when they take money from hospital and medical PACs, and from leadership PACs, such as the one affiliated with House Speaker Bobby Harrell. As president of Palmetto State Pharmaceuticals (also known as PrimaryRX), Harrell stands to make a lot of money with the expansion of the Medicaid rolls. The South Carolina Hospital Association also wants to expand the Medicaid rolls.
According to the State Ethics Commission, Sandifer, Rep. Bill Whitmire and Sen. Thomas Alexander each received thousands of dollars from entities that would profit from the implementation of Obamacare and the expansion of Medicaid.
Does this explain why our local delegation hasn’t signed on to support H. 3101 or S. 102 to protect our state from Obamacare?
One would think that having a Republican House, Senate and governor would be a slam-dunk for protecting the rights and freedoms of the citizens of South Carolina.
The Declaration of Independence says, “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”