George Will has a good one today at WaPo talking about how States might potentially head-off any Federal incursion into their own health care systems.

It’s not easy, but basically the plan would be for the State’s to enact Amendments to their own Constitutions guaranteeing that private choice in medical care shall not be infringed nor penalties imposed for failing to obtain coverage. Will recounts an Arizona initiative to do just that:

In 2006, long before there was an Obama administration determined to impose a command-and-control federal health-care system, a young orthopedic surgeon walked into the Goldwater Institute here with an idea. The institute, America’s most potent advocate of limited government, embraced Eric Novack’s idea for protecting Arizonans from health-care coercion. In 2008, Arizonans voted on Novack’s proposed amendment to the state’s Constitution:

“No law shall be passed that restricts a person’s freedom of choice of private health care systems or private plans of any type. No law shall interfere with a person’s or entity’s right to pay directly for lawful medical services, nor shall any law impose a penalty or fine, of any type, for choosing to obtain or decline health care coverage or for participation in any particular health care system or plan.”

Read the article for Will’s Constitutionality analysis, which effectively boils down to ‘it very well might be found Constitutional’. The only thing I’ll add to it is that the question, I think, will ultimately come down first to whether Congress intended to completely “occupy the field” and second, more importantly, whether Congress even has the right to do so with an issue such as Health Care.

So who goes first? Oklahoma? Texas? Will notes that despite being outspent 5 to 1 by opponents of the initiative, the measure lost by less than 9,000 votes out of 2.1 million cast. That’s good news for State’s that want to get a jump on throwing up as many roadblocks to ObamaCare as possible.

So be the first to call your Governor and suggest it. Hell I may even do so with Jersey’s newly-minted Republican, if only for shits and giggles.

Russ