The momentum is building.
Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon piece:
“Obamacare had a bad couple of days before the Supreme Court so bad that President Obama made some ill-considered comments about the Court from which he still hasn’t totally backpedaled. Though the oral arguments over the individual mandate and severability were encouraging, we cannot count on the Supremes to kill Obamacare. Opponents must keep fighting it on all fronts.
The most important front right now is to ensure that states do not create the health-insurance exchanges Obamacare needs in order to operate. Refusing to create exchanges is the most powerful thing states can do to take Obamacare down. Think of it as an insurance policy in case the Supreme Court whiffs.
Exchanges are the new government bureaucracies through which millions of Americans will be compelled to purchase Obamacare’s overpriced and overregulated health insurance. Through these bureaucracies, insurance companies will receive hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies. Without these bureaucracies, Obamacare cannot work.
Obamacare does not and cannot mandate that states create exchanges.
Here are just a few reasons why states should refuse to create them.”........
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/no-obamacare-exchanges?print
The MSM is suppressing this speculation to negate any activism.
If red states are having job growth then they can also weather out opting out from Obamataxcare.
http://gov.idaho.gov/mediacenter/execorders/eo11/eo_2011_03.html
Better yet, Idaho's House passed the first Obamacare nullification bill. It died in the Idaho senate because they wanted the courts to deal with it. Well the courts have and now it's possible Idaho and others will nullify Obamacare regardless of the stupid federal funding and implementation issues.
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2011/02/first-in-the-nation-idaho-house-passes-health-care-nullification/
In one place the article says that the 0bamacare law does not require States to set up exchanges; "And, oddly enough, the law doesn't actually require states to set up these "marketplaces."
In another place it seems to contradict itself; The letter goes on to specifically implore the governors "to oppose any creation of a state health care exchange mandated under the President's discredited health care law."
So this is obviously the crux - are States required to set up exchanges or not?
Anyone.... Buehler?
This is a pretty good sounding scenareo if accurate. The states that do set-up the exchanges must raise taxes and those individuals that use them will have their employer fined for not providing the insurance to them themselves. If the state doesnt setup the exchanges there is no fine to employers.
Here in Maryland our Dem governor (O Malley) has already prepared with waves of tax increase after tax increase on us, the latest an income tax increase for those making over 100K/150K for singles/couples. That is about 80% of working adults living in my county. The remaining are on government assistance.
If Obamacare proceeds there will be total chaos. Millions will loose health insurance as employers drop coverage and private health care insurance companies go out of business, but there will not be any viable health care exchanges or expanded Medicaid for those loosing coverage. Rather than addressing the problem of the uninsured, Obamacare will make the problem worse.
Governor Scott Walker said that he is going to wait until after the Presidential elections.
Even if states do not set up the exchange and the federal government is not able to set up the exchange in resisting states, the mandate to buy insurance will still apply and zero would have the immense power of the IRS to bully states and individuals in those states. Instead of withholding Medicaid money, the IRS would be the administration’s fist. That’s why I think it would be a good strategy to demonize the IRS (as the ME gov LePage recently did last week). Making the Dems defend the IRS is good politics.
Texas Rejects Expansion of Medicaid
Shocking no one, Perry said in a release this morning that no way, no how would he expand Medicaid.
If anyone was in doubt, we in Texas have no intention to implement so-called state exchanges or to expand Medicaid under Obamacare, says the governor. I will not be party to socializing healthcare and bankrupting my state in direct contradiction to our Constitution and our founding principles of limited government.
He dispatched a missive to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius underscoring that point. As in:
In the ObamaCare plan, the federal government sought to force the states to expand their Medicaid programs by in the words of the Supreme Court putting a gun to their heads. Now that the gun to the head has been removed, please relay this message to the President: I oppose both the expansion of Medicaid as provided in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the creation of a so-called state insurance exchange, because both represent brazen intrusions into the sovereignty of our state.
Well, well, well...thank goodness for silver linings. :-)