Court ruling could widen health coverage disparities among states

LA Times ^ | June 28, 2012 | Noam Levey

[CutePuppy]

President Obama, in his drive for a national healthcare overhaul, strove to provide a new guarantee that all Americans, no matter where they lived, would have basic protection against sickness and disease, ending decades of variations among states.

..... < snip >

Under the court's ruling, states will be free to decide not to cover all their poor residents through their Medicaid programs.

That may mean liberal states that have embraced the healthcare law such as California, Massachusetts and Maryland will in 2014 effectively offer all their residents health coverage, a key goal of the law Obama signed two years ago.

But conservative states such as Florida and Texas, which have refused to implement the law while they challenged it in court, could reject federal aid, leaving millions of their residents without medical insurance.

.....

[CutePuppy]

This is yet another unintended (?) consequence of the muddled mess in which Americans find themselves, after the Roberts decision to be an "activist judge" (while he stated the intention to do exactly the opposite) and essentially "rewrite" the Obamacare by calling the individual mandate and the resulting fines/fees/penalties a "tax" - for actions NOT taken by individuals and/or employers.

This may result in or speed up the migration of sick and poor to liberal states, putting further burden on their already strained resources, and a "brain drain" of more productive, younger and healthier to conservative states thus strengthening their economic and electoral might.

Liberal states might not like it when they can't rely on the tax dollars from conservative ("red") states... which might lead them to wish for undoing of Obamacare.

The situation may become not unlike current eurozone, where Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and soon, maybe France, etc. want Germany to have tighter "political and financial integration" to support their socialist welfare states. Fortunately Merkel wants nothing to do with this and so-called Eurobonds which will eventually fall on Germans to pay.

[Eye of Unk]

So we have Texas and Florida, possibly Wisconsin as well flipping the bird at Obamacare.

We need more states, where is Alaska, Idaho, and others?

[netmilsmom]

This “tax” started in the Senate.
It is unconstitutional.

[Proud_texan]

Already the commie drumbeat starts up again, gimme more, gimme more, the sky is falling, we need to fix this. Women and children dying in the streets.

If the devil's greatest trick was convincing the world he didn't exist it's topped by commies pretending they're something else.

[sbark]

N.Dak is a prime candidate to be german’ized under ObamaCare. Perceived right now as a rich oil state, and are contemplating to implement ObamaCare.

Could see in influx of poor that would tax the health care and the welfare roles, and then swing the vote to perpetual Liberalism.....the same thing they ran from...

like a vermin migration....run from what you destroyed, ruin what you run to, and then repeat.

[The Great RJ]

It is more than that states will choose not to participate in Obamacare’s extension of Medicaid eligibility. Small population state like South Dakota currently have only a few health insurance providers because of their small markets. Remember that FEDERAL law prohibits health insurance companies from offering coverage across state lines except in some limited cases with waivers for multi-state companies. With the skyrocketing costs of insurance inherent with Obamacre, health insurance companies will likely stop offering policies in low population states because there are insufficient numbers of insured people to spread the now higher costs.

[CutePuppy]

With the skyrocketing costs of insurance inherent with Obamacre, health insurance companies will likely stop offering policies in low population states because there are insufficient numbers of insured people to spread the now higher costs.

Exactly, the rates will have to go up or the insurance companies will have to stop offering insurance in some markets. It is a fine mess that Justice Roberts created with his activist rewrite of the law - with many unintended (?) or unforseen consequences.

See Health care ruling could leave poorest Americans at greatest risk - FR / MSNBC, 2012 June 28, by Alex Johnson.

[CutePuppy]

like a vermin migration....run from what you destroyed, ruin what you run to, and then repeat.

That's not an Obamacare-specific issue, it's actually the part of Democrats' so-called Colorado Model and related "Red to Blue Program" / "Swing State Project.

[CutePuppy]

Of particular interest is a George Soros-funded SECRETARY OF STATE PROJECT (SOSP)

IT's an idea - which came around after 2000 and 2004 slim election victories of Geoerge W. Bush - of electing Democrats to the Secretary of State office in the swing states, so they can "win" close elections in those states:

The Secretary of State Project (SoSP) was established in July 2006 as an independent "527" organization devoted to helping Democrats get elected to the office of secretary-of-state in selected swing, or battleground, states; these were states where the margin of victory in the 2004 presidential election (between George W. Bush and John Kerry) had been 120,000 votes or less.1 One of the principal duties of the secretary of state is to serve as the chief election officer who certifies candidates as well as election results in his or her state.2 The holder of this office, then, can potentially play a key role in determining the winner of a close election.

SoSP's co-founders were Democracy Alliance member Michael Kieschnick (who also founded Working Assets and serves as a board member of the leftist evangelical group Sojourners); Becky Bond (who also had affiliations with Working Assets and the New Organizing Institute); and James Rucker (who co-founded Color of Change and formerly served as director of grassroots mobilization for MoveOn.org Political Action and Moveon.org Civic Action). ..... < snip >

..... To establish "election protection" against similar disappointments in subsequent political races, SoSP in 2006 targeted its funding efforts on the secretary-of-state races in seven swing states ― Iowa, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Colorado, and Michigan. As USA Today reported at the time: "The political battle for control of the federal government has opened up a new front: the obscure but vital state offices that determine who votes and how those votes are counted." Democrats emerged victorious in five of those seven elections―all except Colorado and Michigan. Politico.com would later characterize SoSP as "an administrative firewall" designed, "in anticipation of a photo-finish presidential election," to protect Democrats' "electoral interests in ... the most important battleground states."

Because few Americans recognize the importance of the secretary of state's duties, candidates for that office tend to draw fewer (and smaller) donations than do most state-level campaigns. Consequently, even a modest injection of cash from just a handful of generous donors can make an enormous difference in the comparative financial resources of rival campaigns, and thereby tip the scales decidedly in favor of the better-funded candidate. Among the more notable contributors to SoSP were Democracy Alliance members George Soros, Rob Stein, Drummond Pike, Gail Furman, Michael Kieschnick, John R. Hunting, Paul Rudd, Pat Stryker, Nicholas Hanauer, Patricia Bauman, Megan Hull, Scott Wallace, Barbara Lee (not the congresswoman), Anne Bartley, Blair Hull, Rob McKay, Sanford Newman, William J. Roberts, Tim Gill, and Susie Tompkins Buell.

It paid off later in Ohio and Minnesota, where SoS Mark Ritchie, a former "organizer," helped steal election from Norm Coleman and give the Senate seat to Al Franken.