Ohio looking for some Freedom Fighters

In 1776 George Washington was encamped with his decimated army of 2,500 soldiers in Valley Forge. They were tired, starved, frozen. The opposition was better trained, more experienced, and well funded. The fate of the revolution, the fate of our country, rested in the hands of these 2,500 Americans.

Now, the Ohio Project is looking for volunteers to help them complete the required task of collecting 600,000 signatures to get the Healhtcare Freedom Amendment onto the Ohio ballot this fall. The Ohio Liberty Council, which is a coalition of 40 grassroot groups, has submitted a proposed state constitutional amendment to “preserve the freedom of Ohioans to choose their health care and health care coverage.”.

This amendment, drafted by the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law, would protect Ohioans from the financial burdens and individual mandates contained in the new federal health care measure passed by Congress.

Apparently, Ohio’s filings by the Ohio Liberty Council is the nation’s first citizen-initiated action. There have been twenty-six state legislatures that have introduced bills to propose constitutional amendments to block  the individual mandates that are found in the newly passed federal health care legislation act.

Previously, the attempts to even start the petition for these signatures was hindered by Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner and the Ballot Board stating that the proposed amendment needed to be split into two parts and that the sponsor had to start all over – requiring them to collect two sets of 402,275 signatures by June 30. However, the Ohio Supreme Court decided that the original proposed amendment could proceed as submitted and petitions could be signed and collected to allow the amendment to make it to Ohio’s ballot box in November.

“The Ohio Liberty Council seeks to preserve the freedom of Ohioans to choose their health care and health care coverage,” said Ohio Liberty Council President Chris Littleton. “With the passage of untenable national mandates on health insurance, the federal government is trampling on the direct constitutional authority and responsibility of state legislatures. This constitutional amendment will do what our leaders in the Statehouse and Congress have failed to do – protect Ohioans from federal mandates on personal behavior.”

“The health care reform bill’s requirement to maintain minimum essential coverage essentially asserts that if you are alive, you must buy health insurance that is acceptable to the federal government. However, the mere act of being alive is not commerce that can be regulated by the federal government,” said 1851 Center Executive Director Maurice Thompson. “Accordingly, the legislation is constitutionally tenuous, and will take a backseat to our constitutional amendment, which upon enactment, will be a fundamental right amongst all Ohioans.”

The amendment provides that:

• In Ohio, no law or rule shall compel, directly or indirectly, any person, employer, or health care provider to participate in a health care system;
• In Ohio, no law or rule shall prohibit the purchase or sale of health care or health insurance; and
• In Ohio, no law or rule shall impose a penalty or fine for the sale or purchase of health care or health insurance.

The amendment does not:

• Affect laws or rules in effect as of March 19, 2010;
• Affect which services a health care provider or hospital is required to perform or provide;
• Affect terms and conditions of government employment; and
• Affect any laws calculated to deter fraud or punish wrongdoing in the health care industry.

According to their website, anyone interested in helping out can visit http://www.theohioproject.com/ to get more information and sign up to work on allowing the citizens of Ohio to vote on this issue come November.