Dayton Daily News...
Issue 3 tests health care reform law
The ballot issue won’t exempt Ohio from looming federal mandates.
by William Hershey

 October 25, 2011

COLUMBUS — Ohio voters on Nov. 8 will get a chance to send a message about President Barack Obama’s federal health care law, even if they don’t have the power to exempt the state from the law’s requirement that all Americans buy health insurance by 2014 or face penalties. 

A “yes” vote on Issue 3 would add an amendment to the Ohio Constitution’s bill of rights stating that “no federal, state or local law or rule shall compel, directly or indirectly, any person, employer or health care provider to participate in a health care system.” 

Tea Party groups, with help from the Ohio Republican Party, led efforts to gather nearly 560,000 signatures from registered voters to put the issue on the ballot. 

In the Dayton area and across the state, the issue generates strong feelings. 

Chris Littleton, a Tea Party leader from West Chester Twp. who helped put the issue before voters, said the exertion of government power in the mandate was “the likes of what we’ve never seen before.” 

“They can basically control everything you say or do if they can control what you have to buy,” Littleton said. 

However, Dr. Donald Nguyen, medical director and chief of pediatric urology at the Children’s Medical Center of Dayton, said that in a “civilized nation” all involved — individuals, governments and insurance companies — need to participate and take responsibility for health care. 

“It’s a mutual obligation from all of us,” said Dr. Nguyen, a co-chair of the “Vote No on Issue 3” coalition. 

There’s little doubt that voter approval would prevent Ohio from imposing a state mandate, as Massachusetts did when Republican Mitt Romney, now a candidate for president, was governor. 

However, the U.S. Supreme Court, not Ohio voters, will decide the fate of the mandate in the federal health care law, most experts say. 

“If the U.S. Supreme Court says the Obama health care law is constitutional, Ohio, by referendum or anything else, can’t override that decision,” said Republican Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, who backs Issue 3. 

Ohio, under DeWine’s leadership, is among 26 states challenging the federal law that has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rule in the case. 

The U.S. Justice Department, supporting the law, also has asked the Supreme Court to take up the dispute. 

If the high court takes the case, a decision could come by next June, DeWine said. 

That would be after voters in Ohio have sent their message. 

“It would be symbolic as an expression of the majority of the people in Ohio,” said Richard Saphire, a University of Dayton law professor who opposes Issue 3. “It might be symbolic in the sense that some justices on the Supreme Court might be interested in knowing for federalism purposes what the people in the country think about these things.” 

Maurice Thompson, who crafted the amendment as executive director of the Ohio-based 1851 Center for Constitutional Law, said passage of the amendment would influence the U.S. Supreme Court’s consideration of the mandate. Also, passage of the Ohio amendment could provide a future basis for challenging the requirement, Thompson said. 

Saphire said, however, that the biggest impact from approval could be wording in the proposed amendment that might jeopardize future changes to workers compensation, school immunizations and other health-care related programs that have enjoyed bipartisan support. 

He said he agreed with an analysis by two professors from Case Western Reserve University School of Law — Jessie Hill and Maxwell Mehlman — that outlined such potential consequences. 

The amendment wouldn’t affect state laws or rules in effect as of March 19, 2010, but could raise a “nightmare scenario” for changes after that, said Saphire. 

Littleton, the Tea Party leader, denied such potential effects and said opponents are “fishing for a political narrative.” 

Meanwhile, the campaign continues almost in the shadow of the more heated and better-financed battle over Issue 2. That’s the referendum on Senate Bill 5, which changes public employee collective bargaining rules. 

While ads for and against Issue 2 dominate TV, both sides in the Issue 3 fight say they’re counting on grass-roots, get-out-the-vote efforts to prevail. 

Read this and other articles in the Dayton Daily News