Having pushed, pulled, wheedled and cajoled, Rep. Lois Kolkhorst is on the verge of seeing her legislation passed granting Texas the ability to enter into a health care compact.
House Bill 5, as it has been known in the versions passed by the House, twice in the regular session and twice more in this special session, is now part of Senate Bill 7, a sprawling piece of health care reform legislation.
The bill is expected to be considered by the full Senate on Monday. Kolkhorst says the Senate has the votes to pass the bill, although the compact language and other elements of the bill are likely to be opposed by Senate Democrats.
Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, would have liked to see the Senate vote on her compact bill by itself and on its own merits, but she is philosophical. The compacts idea, which directly challenges federal authority to set the terms of health care and its funding, is considered by Democrats an affront to the Obama administration’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
The four House approvals were made along political lines. The balking in the Senate, which killed the bill in the regular session and denied it a committee hearing in the special session, caused Kolkhorst to gain support for adding compacts to SB 7.
“The Democrats view this as the ultimate block to the Patient Protection Act,” Kolkhorst said following the House session Friday. “I see it as a bigger issue. Either you are federalist who sees the authority top down or you take a states’ rights approach, letting individual states decide their future for their health care programs. It’s an epic struggle.”
Should SB 7 be signed into law, Texas would join Georgia and Oklahoma as the only states to make themselves eligible to enter into agreements allowed under Section 10, Article 1 of the Constitution.
This section has been the underpinning for a long history of interstate commercial compacts. Never before have states invoked this section to reconfigure the authority of programs funded by the federal government and carried out by the states.
Much of the inertia for this unconventional interpretation of the Constitution has come from conservatives. Kolkhorst’s push in Texas reflects conservatives’ rising ire over the federal government lashing the states to programs like Medicaid that states are finding they cannot afford.
The corollary to the state health agreement in Kolkhorst’s bill is a call for the federal government to give the states block grants to fund their health care programs as they see fit, rather than dictating how federal funds should be spent.
“Democrats do not believe in block grants. They believe that the states will receive less and less federal funding, fueled by the national debt crisis. I don’t think that’s the case at all,” Kolkhorst says.
As part of SB 7, the health compact legislation can be seen as an effort by Republicans in both chambers to find different ways to control health care spending. As such, Kolkhorst says, “I think it’s one of the most important health care bills in recent history. I think it is one of the most important health care votes we’ll ever take.”
And with it, the bill will advance the nascent compacts movement, of which Kolkhorst says she is proud to be a part.
“I don’t know that a health care compact will ever be adopted, but I think it is vitally important that we send a message to the federal government that we need some flexibility and some control over these programs.”
The bill is expected to be considered by the full Senate on Monday. Kolkhorst says the Senate has the votes to pass the bill, although the compact language and other elements of the bill are likely to be opposed by Senate Democrats.
Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, would have liked to see the Senate vote on her compact bill by itself and on its own merits, but she is philosophical. The compacts idea, which directly challenges federal authority to set the terms of health care and its funding, is considered by Democrats an affront to the Obama administration’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
The four House approvals were made along political lines. The balking in the Senate, which killed the bill in the regular session and denied it a committee hearing in the special session, caused Kolkhorst to gain support for adding compacts to SB 7.
“The Democrats view this as the ultimate block to the Patient Protection Act,” Kolkhorst said following the House session Friday. “I see it as a bigger issue. Either you are federalist who sees the authority top down or you take a states’ rights approach, letting individual states decide their future for their health care programs. It’s an epic struggle.”
Should SB 7 be signed into law, Texas would join Georgia and Oklahoma as the only states to make themselves eligible to enter into agreements allowed under Section 10, Article 1 of the Constitution.
This section has been the underpinning for a long history of interstate commercial compacts. Never before have states invoked this section to reconfigure the authority of programs funded by the federal government and carried out by the states.
Much of the inertia for this unconventional interpretation of the Constitution has come from conservatives. Kolkhorst’s push in Texas reflects conservatives’ rising ire over the federal government lashing the states to programs like Medicaid that states are finding they cannot afford.
The corollary to the state health agreement in Kolkhorst’s bill is a call for the federal government to give the states block grants to fund their health care programs as they see fit, rather than dictating how federal funds should be spent.
“Democrats do not believe in block grants. They believe that the states will receive less and less federal funding, fueled by the national debt crisis. I don’t think that’s the case at all,” Kolkhorst says.
As part of SB 7, the health compact legislation can be seen as an effort by Republicans in both chambers to find different ways to control health care spending. As such, Kolkhorst says, “I think it’s one of the most important health care bills in recent history. I think it is one of the most important health care votes we’ll ever take.”
And with it, the bill will advance the nascent compacts movement, of which Kolkhorst says she is proud to be a part.
“I don’t know that a health care compact will ever be adopted, but I think it is vitally important that we send a message to the federal government that we need some flexibility and some control over these programs.”
***
Contact Mark Lisheron at 512-299-2318 or mark@texaswatchdog.org or on Twitter at @marktxwatchdog.
Keep up with all the latest news from Texas Watchdog. Fan our page on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and Scribd, and fan us on YouTube. Join our network on de.licio.us, and put our RSS feeds in your newsreader. We're also on MySpace, Digg, FriendFeed, and tumblr.
Photo of pills by flickr user Grumpy-Puddin, used via a Creative Commons license.
Contact Mark Lisheron at 512-299-2318 or mark@texaswatchdog.org or on Twitter at @marktxwatchdog.
Keep up with all the latest news from Texas Watchdog. Fan our page on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and Scribd, and fan us on YouTube. Join our network on de.licio.us, and put our RSS feeds in your newsreader. We're also on MySpace, Digg, FriendFeed, and tumblr.
Photo of pills by flickr user Grumpy-Puddin, used via a Creative Commons license.
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