Theda Skocpol, a professor at Harvard University and expert on health care politics and policy, said in an email Tuesday. "State-level experiments and variants will often have a more progressive flavor - in the states doing their own exchanges - and of course those may create models that could later spread. Meanwhile, the feds will at least create some consistency."

I didn't even think of this.  Not only is the Federal government taking over basically all of the red states' health care exchanges, but it also means that none of the red states are going to be implementing competing models.  The only one of the red states that might actually try something clever is Utah, but that is vs 20 or something blue states.  So if an alternative model comes out, it will almost certainly be based on a plan started by Democrats.

No compromise? No say.

Where is snark?

Naw, the insurance industry and the medical industry will be setting the rules for a very long time, as they have been for a very long time.

Health insurance ≠ health care

I'm just glad to Christ Arizona won't be doing its own thing.

The best health insurance Money will buy you.
Congress gets real health insurance. Free!
Why not you?

/'cause when it is for everybody, it is not/cannot be free
//USA home of the most PROFIT on human misery ever invented

This About That: Naw, the insurance industry and the medical industry will be setting the rules for a very long time, as they have been for a very long time.

Subject to the minimum requirements that the federal program will be using.

Basically, it's a public option for 26 states.

// trollface

Shiatty Medicaid is better than nothing.

But I imagine that these states are going to have some sort of shiatty medicaid.

but how can they spin this to make blame President Obama?

oh my answer is in TFA

The immediate political upshot for leaders of the Republican states that stonewalled the exchanges is that they'll avoid the wrath of their conservative flanks. And in the long-run, this decision allows them to more easily blame the federal government if things go wrong.

derp.

Isitoveryet: oh my answer is in TFA

The immediate political upshot for leaders of the Republican states that stonewalled the exchanges is that they'll avoid the wrath of their conservative flanks. And in the long-run, this decision allows them to more easily blame the federal government if things go wrong.

Yep, and there it is. And it's ultimately worth remembering: This is a plan that has been championed by such progressive luminaries as Bob Dole and Mitt Romney. The Republicans want Fartfartfartfartfartbongofartcare to succeed, and rather badly, because they know that it's the only way to keep the private health insurance gravy train rolling. They also want their sucker voting base to keep voting for them. This way, they get everything they want.

Isitoveryet: but how can they spin this to make blame President Obama?

Unnecessary enbiggening of the Federal government will be their battle cry as they use their gerrymandered control of the US House and the state legislatures to try to dismantle Obamacare via de-funding the exchanges.

Local Government is Best Government.

ecmoRandomNumbers: I'm just glad to Christ Arizona won't be doing its own thing.

Amen to that.

What's really stupid is that in Mississippi, the Republican Insurance Commissioner started to set up an Exchange because his thought is, if we're going to have it, lets have some say in it.

The Republican Governor almost took him out back and shot him for going along with the Fed plan.

HotWingConspiracy: What? The Affordable Care Act will cause rates to rise? Who saw that coming, huh?

Yeah rates never went up before, what gives?

Short term inconvenience > Long term solutions

Remember that when dealing with the GOP.

jigger: http://www.latimes.com/health/la-na-insurance-costs-20130218,0,173150 4 .story


Less than a year before Americans will be required to have insurance under President Obama's healthcare law, many of its backers are growing increasingly anxious that premiums could jump, driven up by the legislation itself. Higher premiums could undermine a core promise of the Affordable Care Act: to make basic health protections available to all Americans for the first time. Major rate increases also threaten to cause a backlash just as the law is supposed to deliver many key benefits Obama promised when he signed it in 2010.

What? The Affordable Care Act will cause rates to rise? Who saw that coming, huh?

Obamacare is the reason health insurance premiums go up?  Damn him and that time machine!

Face it, as long as for-profit insurance companies are involved in health care.  They know they can get away with this because what are you going to do - tell them NOT to pay for your chemo?

DeathBySmiley: To be clear, Republicans didn't oppose universal coverage.

They opposed creating a level, competitive marketplace where health insurance companies have to compete with one another in order to acquire new customers.

You know, Communism.

So communism is a system in which for-profit companies must compete for customers?  As opposed to the cartel system we have now?