Posted on 11/16/2012 9:36:55 AM PST by inkling
Very good news on the Obamacare front as three more states seem likely to refuse to open a state-run "health insurance exchange," thus leaving it to the feds to operate the "exchange" in their state --Ohio, Indiana and probably Wisconsin. They join Texas, Florida, Alaska, and probably Michigan, and among the big states, only Pennsylvania and New Jersey have yet to decide, and hopefully they will study the issue and follow the lead of these governors, as should Arizona's Jan Brewer, who is being urged by big insurance forces in her state to take the poison. It looks like the booby-traps in the law have been figured out by most of the GOP governors, and perhaps even some Democrat governors will figure out the great disservice they are doing their own citizens by establishing a Potemkin exchange.
The GOP governors gathered in conference this week and most seem to be focused on the enormous downsides of the exchanges while not yet deciding to bring suit against the damage done to structural federalism by the false choice on exchanges foisted on them by the unpopular and wildly complicated law.
“I think most governors here at this conference would instinctively prefer to choose state versus federal,” [Wisconsin Governor Scott] Walker said. “The concern I have is, they’re really state (run) in name only.”
That is a very good concern to have as that is what the "state" exchanges will be --puppet exchanges run in fact by federal bureaucrats, and the design flaws, enormous costs, triggered taxes and poor outcomes of which will be blamed on state officials.
See this post for my request for the assistance of state insurance bureaucrats in outlining how the federal excvhange will destroy state autonomy in unconstitutional ways. If the federal exchange collapses because of cost andthe inability to get it to function effectively, Obamacare collapses. If it gets up and running, that means it will be feeding off of state bureaucracy and money, which renders it constitutionally suspect and open to challenge.
Arizona's wonderful Goldwater Institute has lots of background information on the policy choice, but the legal assault on the constitutionality of the exchanges still needs a champion to build upon Oklahoma's narrow challenge. My piece from earlier this week on this issue is here. If no state argues that the "choice" and the federal exchange the follows it equal an unconstitutional attack on structural federalism, the courts and esepcially the Supreme Court will never have the chance to review the issue (and perhaps get a second bite at the big apple.)
As a Michigander, you all have my permission to lean on our Semicrat governor Rick Snyder.
Thanks, inkling!
Here is a better idea than state run insurance exchanges:
Create a nation wide health insurance market. Allow consumers the ability to buy the best health policies to meet their individual needs across state lines at the lowest possible cost. And allow every one who wants one a health savings account.
Sorry. The country just voted that down. Alas.
Hear, hear!
Hoping NC under new management will ditch this too....
I wonder what’s holding back Jan Brewer and the AZ state legislature?
Obamacare eliminates freedom altogether.
Unfortunately, what we are getting is:
Destroy the health insurance market nationwide. Force all consumers to participate in a single one-size-fits-all government-run plan at confiscatory prices (and taxes). Punish anyone who seeks any means to bypass or supplement the government system.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Nathan Deal, Gov of GA has said he will not create a state exchange.
What the he++ is wrong with Mississippi?
Don’t know. They may have jumped the gun and not realized there was a way out.
Old people will probably just die of something or the other anyway. <Jocelyn Elders><Surgeon General><Body Licking better than sex>
Just announced on WSB here in Atlanta that Gov. Deal will not create a state exchange for Obamacare. They also added that “thousands will be left without insurance”. No mention of the 2000 dollars that businesses would have to pay per employee to fund these exchanges. Biased media business as usual!!
Maine and New Hampshire are the only New England states not to join... Thank you, Maine and New Hampshire citizens!!
Probably.
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