Healthcare Reform: Westmoreland predicts high court will void individual mandate
By W. WINSTON SKINNERwinston@newnan.com
U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland says he believes the U.S. Supreme Court will throw out the individual mandate in the federal health care law.
Westmoreland, speaking during a forum sponsored by the Coweta Tea Party Patriots on Saturday morning, was cautious in offering an opinion. Asked about the high court’s expected ruling in the next few days on the far-ranging federal law, the congressman said it is almost impossible to guess how a court may rule.
Removing the individual mandate, which requires all Americans to have health insurance coverage, “basically guts the bill,” Westmoreland said. “The individual mandate was to pay for some of the preventive care and some of the other mandates.”
Westmoreland suggested much of preventive care is simply common sense — exercising, dieting. “Activity is good for you. We don’t need the government telling us that,” he said.
If the individual mandate is voided, “we need to repeal the rest of it and start over,” the Republican, who lives near Grantville, said.
He said there are physicians in the Republican conference who are “putting together a patient-centered bill” to replace the current law, often referred to as Obamacare.
