Some bills don't go anywhere

It makes us happy when bills we thought were bad, wrong or stupid live and die on the same day. But wait! Why would a lawmaker introduce a badwrongstupid bill to start with? Oh, you know…

• States' rights. 
• Tenth Amendment. 
• Liberty! Freedom! 'Murica!

Take, for instance, HB2509.

In one page – just seven paragraphs – Delegates Faircloth, McGeehan, Moffatt, Kessinger, J. Nelson and Ihle wanted to pull the Affordable Care Act rug right out from under more than 33,000 West Virginians who enrolled or renewed their enrollment in that socialist, government-run plan commonly known as Obamacare.

Good thing those thousands of citizens have health insurance. People could get INJURED having the rug pulled out from under them.

We know that you know the ACA isn't a socialist, government-run plan. Some people still think so, imagine that. Why, if it were a government-run plan, it would be Medicare! And socialist? That would be the Veteran's Administration, thankyouverymuch.

So what, exactly, did HB2509 say? One sentence in the summation explains: "It determines that the federal legislation is invalid in this state."

Whoa. Just this state? Not all the other states whose citizens are also getting preventive care and reasonable co-pays under the ACA? Just West Virginia?

Who knew we were so special?

Well, they weren't concerned about other states, obviously, because they only represent folks from the Mountain State. But take that one step further, and you have to wonder: WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? And also? WHO WROTE THAT BILL?

Because seriously? When you start from a position that federal legislation is invalid in this state, you have to look past your nose to see what other federal legislation might be affected. Like, um, Medicare, for instance. And Social Security, maybe?

Wonder how that would go over in the state that has the highest number of citizens benefiting from Social Security Disability and the fourth oldest population.

Anyhoo. The bill was introduced on January 29 and went nowhere fast. We haven't seen it since. Except on MSNBC.

Maybe it wouldn't have died so quickly if it had been covered by Obamacare.

P.S. We're keeping a close watch on the Supreme Court, as it hears arguments regarding the Affordable Care Act. WV's Attorney General is just as eager to eliminate subsidies in West Virginia as that handful of Delegates is.