First step: North Carolina needs to be part of effort to challenge health care law

The vote isn't final -- and a lot can happen before it is -- but this week, leaders in the newly minted N.C. General Assembly took the first steps toward keeping a promise.

The House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to recommend that the state join the lawsuit challenging the provisions of the federal health care reform law -- a move many state residents have been asking for since the measure was passed.

The proposal must still go before the whole General Assembly, but the fact that it made it through committee is a sign that, perhaps, this Republican majority is planning on doing more than simply bickering and grandstanding for the next few years.

The health care reform law questions are serious and boil down to some very fundamental rights and privileges of being a resident of a state and a citizen of the United States. Asking someone to examine those questions is not partisan -- it is necessary.

How the health care lawsuit will end up is anybody's guess, but if there is one thing we have all learned over the past few months, it is that the federal government needs to be watched, closely, if we want to make sure that our country continues along the path set by our founding fathers.

There will be change along the way -- and in some cases there should be shifts in how we operate.

But we have to safeguard the core -- the rights we cherish -- and make sure no one has a free hand with our freedoms.

This is one of those times.

Published in Editorials on January 28, 2011 11:21 AM