The Missouri House has passed legislation that seeks to both bar and criminalize enforcement of the 2010 federal health care law.
If passed, the state of Missouri would not recognize the federal Affordable Care Act, and anyone who tries to enforce it in Missouri would be charged with a misdemeanor. The sponsor, GOP House Member Kurt Bahr of St. Charles County, says the U.S. Constitution doesn’t give the federal government the right to force citizens to purchase anything:
“Our oath is to support and defend the Constitution, to know and to understand it, not to simply say, ‘if the federal government says so, therefore we must cow to it and do the bidding of the federal government,” Bahr said.
Democrats argued that the bill is unconstitutional and that Congress does have the authority to pass health care requirements. It now moves to the Missouri Senate. In Jefferson City I’m Marshall Griffin.