Heller: Health care mandate raises constitutional issue

Rep. Dean Heller said Thursday he believes the health care legislation mandate forcing people to buy insurance raises a serious constitutional issue.

The Carson City Republican told the Northern Nevada Development Authority breakfast meeting at the Carson Nugget this is the first time in history the U.S. government has mandated that people buy a

product.

That mandate requires everyone over 18 years of age to have health insurance, which congressional analysts say will give health insurance companies up to 32 million more customers.

"No industry benefited more from the health care bill than insurance companies," he said.

Heller differed from Sen. Harry Reid in analyzing the financial impact of the legislation, saying it will cost

$3 trillion over the next 20 years. In contrast, Reid said earlier this week that the legislation will reduce the nation's deficit $143 billion over the next 10 years and $1.3 trillion the decade after that.

As for calls to repeal the legislation: "Not as long as Barack Obama is president," he told the crowd of nearly 200.

Heller said he supports some parts of the health care bill including stopping insurers from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. But he said health care reform isn't possible without tort reform that limits court awards to $250,000. Other amendments he proposed would let doctors write off care to indigents and allow re-importation of drugs to cut pharmaceutical costs. Those ideas didn't make it into the bill.

In press releases this week, Heller said he would support the lawsuit by 14 states seeking to declare at least the mandates portion of the legislation unconstitutional.

Although saying the only thing that will bring the nation's economy back is jobs, Heller voted against the last jobs bill, describing it as a tax increase.

Jobs have become the Democratic majority's mantra, according to Heller: "They add jobs to everything coming through the House now."

But Heller said Democrats aren't the only ones guilty of that tactic. When George Bush was president, "they added homeland security to every bill, whether it had anything to do with homeland security or not."

Heller said cutting taxes is the way to restore jobs and fix the economy, adding that he would support creating a value added tax - a form of national sales tax - if Congress and the president would throw out the current tax system to do it. But he said instead, the majority is planning to put a value added tax on top of the existing system of taxes.

Existing taxes will go up when the tax cuts pushed through by the Bush administration expire, he told the audience.

Heller said none of this should surprise anyone because it's what Obama promised during his campaign.

"He is fundamentally changing America," he said. "This is exactly what he said he was going to do."

The House already has passed legislation to deal with regulating Wall Street, which is now in the Senate. Heller said the next big challenge for the House to deal with will be immigration reform.

"If you thought health care was tough, just wait," he said.