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Health care rebuke passes House

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.

Missouri Public Radio State House Reporter Marshall Griffin is a proud alumnus of the University of Mississippi (a.k.a., Ole Miss), and has been in radio for over 20 years, starting out as a deejay. His big break in news came when the first President Bush ordered the invasion of Panama in 1989. Marshall was working the graveyard shift at a rock station, and began ripping news bulletins off the old AP teletype and reading updates between songs. From there on, his radio career turned toward news reporting and anchoring. In 1999, he became the capital bureau chief for Florida's Radio Networks, and in 2003 he became News Director at WFSU-FM/Florida Public Radio. During his time in Tallahassee he covered seven legislative sessions, Governor Jeb Bush's administration, four hurricanes, the Terri Schiavo saga, and the 2000 presidential recount. Before coming to Missouri, he enjoyed a brief stint in the Blue Ridge Mountains, reporting and anchoring for WWNC-AM in Asheville, North Carolina. Marshall lives in Jefferson City with his wife, Julie, their dogs, Max and Mason, and their cat, Honey.
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