Attention, voters opposed to the federal health care overhaul. Some Republicans have a new campaign promise for you: They’ll help you break the law.
Republican candidates for Congress and Senate in Arkansas are suggesting voters protest against President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul by refusing to buy health insurance as mandated under that law.
Shortly after the bill was signed, there was a flurry of moves to stop the overhaul that ranged from the filing of federal lawsuits, passing amendments and circulating petitions to exempt states from participating. In Arkansas, Jim Holt and Gunnar DeLay want to try to repeal the act, but said if that’s not possible, voters should not buy insurance.
“I think it’s good to encourage people to break an unjust law,” said Holt, one of eight Republicans running for Democrat Blanche Lincoln’s Senate seat.
DeLay, a former state legislator running for a congressional seat in northwest Arkansas, urged opponents to practice “civil disobedience” and said he would try to help anyone who was fined by the federal government for not carrying insurance.
It’s an extreme reaction to an aspect of the 10-year, $938 billion health care law that’s faced some of the sharpest criticism from conservatives. Attorneys general from 14 states have filed suit to overturn the law, saying that Congress has no authority to require people to buy health insurance.
Arkansas is not one of the states, and Attorney General Dustin McDaniel — a Democrat — has said he doesn’t think such a challenge would hold up in court.
Under the health care law, almost everyone will be required to be insured or else pay a fine, which takes effect in 2014. There is an exemption for low-income people.
The law phases in fines for individuals who don’t get insurance in 2014, with the fines reaching $750 for individuals ($2,250 per family) in 2016. The Internal Revenue Service would collect the fines through tax returns.
DeLay said he’d advocate for those fined by being a liaison between the IRS and the taxpayer. He said another possibility would be to enact a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for those fined for not carrying insurance.
“I want to intervene on their behalf. I want to do everything I can to protect their assets,” DeLay said.
John DiPippa, dean of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law, said the candidates wouldn’t face any legal problems by either directly encouraging or suggesting that people not follow the insurance mandate. Those who refuse to buy insurance, however, couldn’t try to use the candidates’ pledges as a defense.
“The fact that someone gives you bad advice, that doesn’t mean you can break the law with that advice,” DiPippa said.
DiPippa questioned how much impact the candidates’ vows would have, noting that the health care law specifically bans criminal penalties. The law also bars the IRS from assessing liens to enforce the fines.
“It doesn’t seem to me there’s any punishment here, so it’s an odd form of civil disobedience,” DiPippa said.
McDaniel, who defeated DeLay in the 2006 race for attorney general, said he thought the problems Holt and DeLay face with their campaign pledge is more political than legal.
“I think that if members of Congress or members of the General Assembly see a law they don’t like or don’t believe in, they should campaign on the idea of changing it,” McDaniel said.