Republican governors Rick Scott (FL), Sean Parnell (AK), and Bobby Jindal (LA) have flatly refused to implement ObamaCare. Efforts to create an ObamaCare health insurance “Exchange” are meeting resistance in other states too. According to Politico:
In South Carolina, tea party activists have been picking off Republican co-sponsors of a health exchange bill, getting even the committee chairman who would oversee the bill to turn against it.
A Montana legislator who ran on a tea party platform has successfully blocked multiple health exchange bills, persuading his colleagues to instead move forward with legislation that would specifically bar the state from setting up a marketplace.
And in Georgia, tea party protests forced Gov. Nathan Deal to shelve exchange legislation that the Legislature had worked on for months.
According to NewHampshireWatchdog.org:
New Hampshire’s Executive Council voted unanimously [to table] a request from the state Insurance Commissioner to accept $666,000 to study how to set up a health insurance exchange called for under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Councilor David Wheeler (R‑Milford) argued that the study would take New Hampshire down the path of ObamaCare…Councilor Chris Sununu (R‑Newfields) worried that it would provide ammunition to those seeking to increase state control over health care, and might put state taxpayers on the hook for the cost on an exchange.
Reason’s Peter Suderman writes:
At first glance, the law seems like a trap for those who both oppose the law and favor federalism: ObamaCare calls on states to set up exchanges; in any state that does not sufficiently comply by 2013, the federal government will simply swoop in and set up an exchange on its own. That leaves governors who oppose the law in something of a bind: Either take control and set up a state-run exchange, or let the federal government step in and run things itself…But there are a number of reasons why governors in that position might want to sit out the implementation process. For one thing, states won’t have much flexibility to design the exchanges as they see fit, despite the administration’s protestations to the contrary.… For governors who oppose the law, refusing to set up the exchanges is also a smart move politically.…
If these state governments are skeptical enough of the law’s constitutionality to sign onto a lawsuit challenging it, they probably shouldn’t be devoting time and resources to implementing it either.
