RICHMOND, Va. -- With five Democrats defecting, the Virginia Senate today passed a Republican measure that says Virginians don't have to buy health insurance.
Voting 23-17, the Democratic-controlled Senate kicked to the House a bill by Sen. Frederick Quayle, R-Suffolk, that supporters say will send a message to Washington about its efforts to overhaul the health-care system.
The Quayle bill was the first of three nearly identical proposals by Republicans. The others are carried by Sens. Stephen Martin of Chesterfield and Jill Vogel of Fauquier. They passed by the same margin as the Quayle bill.
Quayle said the legislation is important, because it's a way of telling Congress that Virginians believe the federal goverrnment is overstepping its authority.
If Washington can mandate health insurance, Quayle said, it could also require Americans to buy domestic automobiles as a way to help that ailing industry.
"They could have just ordered us to go out and buy a car -- and just give us the cash to do it," said Quayle, rather than set up the so-called cash-for-clunkers program.
Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw, D-Fairfax, said the Republican proposal is a "brochure bill," intended by the GOP as ammunition in the 2011 General Assembly elections.
And Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath, the defeated Democratic candidate for governor in 2009, said the legislature has more important business than playing politics with health care through a debate on where federal power ends and state authority begins.
Lawmakers, he said, should be more concerned about the aftershocks of the recession and closing the $4.2 billion hole in the Virginia budget.
"And now we're arguing about theory," said Deeds.
The five Democrats joining Republicans in this afternoon's vote were: Charles Colgan of Prince William, R. Edward Houck of Spotsylvania, John Miller of Newport News, Philip Puckett of Russell and Roscoe Reynolds of Henry.
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