The Androscoggin County Republican Party on Monday overwhelmingly approved a resolution asking Governor Paul LePage to call the Maine Legislature to special session and consider legislation nullifying the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, according to a press release from the Maine chapter of the Tenth Amendment Center.
Durham Town Republican Secretary Jason Greene introduced the measure. Only two of the more than 100 members in attendance opposed the resolution, the release said.
Nullification legislation would declare the PPACA, also known as Obamacare, unconstitutional, and authorize the governor and state lawmakers to take steps to block implementation of the federal health care act.
Greene called state intervention the key to stopping implementation of a federal health care program that he feels is clearly unconstitutional and will take away the right of Mainers to make their own health care choices. He compared resistance to the PPACA with Maine’s refusal to implement the Real ID Act during the Bush administration.
“There is no enumerated power for the federal government to create a national ID and there is no enumerated power authorizing the feds to run the entire U.S. health care system,” he said. “Maine, and several other states refused to comply with Real ID and said, ‘We aren’t going to go along with it; it is unconstitutional.’ Because of this, that law is basically gone and is not being enforced. We need to do the same thing with Obamacare.”?Greene says the idea is gaining steam. Cumberland County GOP officials are expected to consider a similar resolution on Tuesday, according to the release.??“Androscoggin County Republican Committee has taken the lead, a lead hopefully other county committees will follow,” he said.
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