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This just in from the Governor's office:
This afternoon, just before 2 p.m., Gov. Perdue vetoed House Bill 2, "Protect Health Care Freedom."
In signing the veto, the governor made the following statement:
"I'm vetoing HB 2 for three reasons: first of all, House Bill 2 actually is contradictory to the federal constitution. A state can't pass a law that is out of obeyance with federal laws, and this House Bill 2 clearly is.
"Secondly, there are 27 other states that are engaged in this process. It's extraneous to North Carolina. This issue will reach the Supreme Court in a timely manner without North Carolina spending money and energy on it. It's superflous.
"And third and most improtantly, the attorney general and solicitor general have talked to me and the leadership of the General Assembly and explained clearly that there are some unintended consequences of House Bill 2 that dramatically affect our medicaid program, potentially hurting the childrens' health insurance program, attacking our process of requiring uninsured motorists to have insurance, attacking college students for having insurance. And finally the whole issue of uintended consequences — today none of us know what this will mean in two weeks, two months or two years.
"This is an ill-conceived piece of legislation that's not good for the people of North Carolina. Therefore I veto it."
HB-2 was among the bills of "dubious constitutionality" — I was being generous — that I described in a column this week.
