A post by Pat
If news like this keeps coming out (and through NPR of all places), states’ Governors may find themselves in the hot seat before a Congressional committee just like the evil, greedy corporations. The states are finding out the magnificent blessing of the health care law will be costing them a lot of money. Cash strapped states will not be allowed to cut Medicaid or reduce the CHIP program to cut costs. In addition to the federal law overriding states’ cost-cutting initiatives, the states will be stuck with administrative and infrastructure costs for the mandated state-run exchanges. Databases will have to be established to keep track of the private plans as well as coordinating overlap with the CHIP and Medicaid programs. Federal funds for assisting states will be limited.
Can States Afford The New Health Care Law?
Because Arizona’s cuts hadn’t officially taken effect, state lawmakers now have to cancel them in order to comply with federal requirements. That will leave a $400 million hole in their new budget. All told, Arizona officials estimate the federal law will cost the state $11.6 billion over the next 10 years.
Brewer calls that “financially devastating.” Many other states – nearly all of which are facing budget shortfalls – are similarly concerned about how much the health law will end up costing them. States that have traditionally offered lower levels of coverage, such as Arizona, will no longer have the option of cutting health spending much in tough times.
And, because states will operate major portions of the federal expansion, they face other challenges. California predicts that the cost of administering the new programs alone will run the state $2 to $3 billion.
“There’s no way, in my view, that this is not going to cost states,” says Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers
State-run exchanges are one of the cornerstones of the new law. These will be marketplaces where individuals and small businesses sign up for private insurance plans. The idea is that they’ll work like travel Web sites such as Orbitz and Expedia, giving individuals and human resource managers their pick among several competing plans.
The exchanges also will figure out whether an individual, even though she may be applying for private coverage, actually meets the requirements for CHIP or Medicaid. That means states need to get often outmoded database systems talking to each other.
Carol Steckel, Alabama’s Medicaid commissioner, says her state can barely afford its share of Medicaid costs under the old rules. She predicts the new law will bring 400,000 more people into her state’s Medicaid system by 2014 – doubling its size. That means even greater costs for the state down the road, despite increased federal subsidies for Medicaid.
“I’m going through my mourning period of how much work there’s going to be,” she says. “We’re for bleepin’ sure going to have to think outside the box.”
This sort of negativity is not welcomed in Washington. It distracts from all the wonderful things and great happiness the new law will bring to the land.
You probably just gave him a great idea, Pat. I’ll bet Lord Waxman read your blogpost and exclaimed, “Hey, an inquisition against governors? . . . That’s not a bad idea!”
In the last year I’ve been thinking that it’s things like this that the Founders of this country were thinking about when they created the U.S. Senate system, where state governments elected the senators to represent state interests. The election of senators was changed to a popular vote system by the 17th Amendment, which was ratified in 1913. The states only have themselves to blame for this, of course, because 3/4ths of the state legislatures voted for this amendment.
It was a long time ago, but the history I remember about this issue was that “the state governments were corrupt and so they’d make backroom deals to sell senate seats,” and stuff like that. Not unlike what former Ill. Gov. Rod Blagojevich was accused of, come to think of it. This change was seen as a reform for cleaning up corruption, but it disempowered state governments. IMO this, along with the 16th Amendment which created the income tax (also ratified in 1913), allowed them to become the lackeys of the federal government.
There’s some interesting history around the 16th Amendment. I remember hearing years ago about a researcher who claimed that the 16th Amendment was never properly ratified. He claimed that only about 3 states actually voted for it, and then the Secretary of State came out one day and declared it ratified. Everyone believed it, and apparently there wasn’t much of a fuss from the other states, and so we’ve lived as if it had been ratified ever since. Various attempts have been made to challenge its ratification over the years, but to no avail. I have no idea if the story is true or not.
When you really think about it, there was a big change in the balance of power in 1913. This is also the year the Federal Reserve was created, which was congress effectively abrogating its constitutional power to create (“coin” is the term) money. It’s still in charge of creating the coins that are in your pocket, but it’s not in charge of creating the dollar bills. Hence they are called “Federal Reserve Notes”. Congress is also not in charge of the “virtual money”, which only exists on ledgers, where most of the value of our economy exists.
One might be tempted to blame President Wilson for all this stuff, since he became president in 1913, but assuming it takes a while to pass constitutional amendments, I’d say President Taft, a progressive Republican groomed by Teddy Roosevelt, and Wilson’s predecessor, is the one to look to. Wilson is responsible for pushing for the Federal Reserve though.
But The One says it’s only been a week since he signed the bill.
Shouldn’t we wait until it’s too late to do anything about it, at least until 2014, before the states start to complain?
We don’t won’t to be ‘troublesome’, do we?
Boy, talk about the godling’s bratty “performance” in Portland, Maine. It was more of a campaign rally than a sell of ODeathCare. Which is silly, because didn’t he sign it into law? No doubt the crowd was full of bused-in SEIU Purple People Beaters.
The first memory I have of a US president is Ford. And I don’t remember any president behaving in front of a crowd of people the way Obama did in Portland. It was incredibly unpresidential. And extremely childish.
The Fool on the Hill was thriving in the adulation from the crowd. Demonstrating that he’d rather campaign than govern.
in it’s own way maine is even more moonbatty than massachusetts. portland is a very very liberal city .
teenage upper middle class white children with dredlocks who play hacky-sack ( and that describes the people over 40.). portland reminds me of city settled by(grateful) dead heads. since uncle jerry garcia died they need a new messiah. barry is perfect for them.
and now urkel’s mini-me, deval patrick, has the nerve, after willfully hiding romneycare’s complete failure in his state and after championing urkel’s grand delusion relentlessly, to complain that parts of obamacare are going to hurt massachusetts- specifically that the medical device tax is going to drive even more companies out of the commonwealth.
without the federal government’s bailouts, romneycare would have crushed the state long ago. now that all of urkel’s 57 states will need the same bailouts just what do fools like patrick think is going to happen?
so now liberals are complaining that there’s no such thing as a free unicorn? perhaps instead of focusing on what king urkel wanted perhaps tools like patrick should have rather done their job- paying attention to what they’re constituents wanted,what the constitution says and what would be financially sound for their states.
It must be so shocking to Mr. Waxman and his democrate collegues. They put so much effort into this healthcare bill. They dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s. They came up with a bill that thought of ALL unintended consequences so that health insurance will be affordable to all, all can keep their current plans and doctors, costs will go down, and millions of new jobs will be created.
It cannot be possible that companies will have to let go of people due to this law. Health insurers can’t increase premiums because this law forces premiums to come down. States cannot complain about new costs, the federal government is going to pay for some of this.
Oh wait, I forgot. As Nancy Pelosi says, “we have to pass this bill to see what is in it” Okay Mr. Waxman. spend from now until November trotting people and companies to your inquisition to admonish them for not complying with the liberal message. In the meantime, I and most other conservatives and independents will be sending our money to not only democrat opponents in our own district, but to districts nationwide (Mr. Stupak, I will be sending money to your opponent). Then in january, we can have investigations into the destruction the liberals have embraced.