The day the House rammed Obamacare down our throats without a single Republican vote, dissenting lawmakers unfurled a sign from a balcony at the U.S. Capitol building which read, “See You at the State Line”. Sixteen states have mounted stiff resistance, recently refusing to establish state-run exchanges. If you think opponents of the law should give up and cave in, just remember, we didn’t ask for this fight, YOU DID. How do you like it?
“ObamaCare is due to land in a mere 10 months—about 300 days—and the Administration is not even close to ready, so naturally the political and media classes are attacking the Governors and state legislators who decline to help out. Mostly Republicans, they’re facing a torrent of abuse in Washington and pressure from health lobbies at home.”
“But the real story is that Democrats are reaping the GOP buy-in they earned. Liberals wanted government to re-engineer the entire health-care system and rammed the Affordable Care Act through on a party-line vote, not stopping to wonder whether it would work. Now that implementation is proving to be harder than advertised, they’re blaming the states for not making their jobs easier.”
“The current rumpus is over ObamaCare’s “exchanges,” the bureaucracies that will regulate the design and sale of insurance and where 30 million people (and likely far more) will sign up for subsidized coverage.”
“Sixteen states have already said they won’t participate.”
“The main problem is that states are being conscripted as federal contractors. HHS has declined to reveal basic operational details except to make clear that state-based exchanges won’t really be run by the states. “No matter which option is chosen,” as Scott Walker put it, “Wisconsin taxpayers will not have meaningful control over the health-care policies and services sold to Wisconsin residents.””
“The Affordable Care Act barely passed and then barely survived Supreme Court review and the 2012 election. Now the entitlement is hurtling toward a truth-in-advertising moment and liberals are terrified that it won’t produce the results they promised. That was always likely given the central planning architecture of ObamaCare, but now the likes of Mr. Walker are declining to do their work for them and depriving them of scapegoats.”
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
November 27, 2012
Hope and Exchange
The feds blame the states for refusing to become ObamaCare subsidiaries. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324556304578121012109574832.html