Technology Slice Blog

Health Insurance Mandate - Voters in Arizona, Colorado and Oklahoma will have the chance Tuesday to repudiate the new health care law’s keystone provision, one that requires almost everyone to have health insurance or face a tax penalty beginning in 2014. Ballots in the three states include proposed amendments to the states' constitutions that would prohibit the enforcement of the individual mandate and other provisions of the law. They echo a measure that Missouri voters approved by more than 70 percent in August. Legislatures in several other states, including Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana and Virginia, have also passed state laws with similar language. But the ballot initiatives have set off a fierce debate: If they succeed, will they have any effect? Critics of the referenda say they’re nothing more than a political gesture, misleading voters to believe that amending their state constitutions would allow them to opt out of the health care law. Given that the Supreme Court wi...