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“We’re not going to start implementing Obamacare,” Gov. Jindal told reporters on a Friday morning conference call, before saying, “We’re going to work very hard to get Governor Romney elected so this law will be repealed long before the effective dates.”
On the specific issue of creating a state health insurance exchange -- which states have the choice to either set up and run themselves with government funding, or defer to the federal government to create and control -- some state lawmakers have signaled immediate opposition. Their unwillingness comes despite a January 2013 deadline for states to establish health exchange plans before the federal government does it for them.
“Senators do not intend to take up legislation this year to create a health benefit exchange,” said North Carolina Republican State Senate leader Phil Berger, “the General Assembly needs time to process and understand this mixed ruling on Obamacare.”
Though no longer mandatory, the expansion of Medicaid coverage has drawn equal ire in states. Though the ACA offers full federal funding for expanded coverage for the first three years before state contributions eventually rise to 10 percent of Medicaid costs, some Republican state lawmakers have wasted no time portraying the law as a burdensome mandate.
“If this unfunded Medicaid expansion is implemented,” said Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman in a released statement, “state aid to education and funding for the University of Nebraska will be cut or taxes will be increased. If some state senators want to increase taxes of cut education funding, I will oppose them.”
Florida Gov. Rick Scott, whose state helped lead the legal charge against President Obama’s health care law, told WOKV in Jacksonville that he opposed an expansion of Medicaid coverage on the grounds that his state could not afford it.
Not all Republican state lawmakers took such a hardline against the ACA’s implementation. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Utah Gov. Gary Herbert plans to follow federal health care mandates for the time being, while refusing “to do something that is going to bust our budget” in the future.
Former Office of Management and Budget director and Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who plans to step down at the end of his term, took what on the surface seems a more moderate approach. Daniels said he would leave the decision on a possible Medicaid expansion to future state legislators.
LP - haven't we gone through this before. I think it was called the civil war.Full story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/30/obama-health-care-law-governors_n_1639923.html
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