Obamacare may be destined to become the law of the land, but some states have recognized there’s a way to keep a bad situation from turning even worse. Texas is one of many states refusing to voluntarily take on the burden of setting up federally mandated “healthcare exchanges” – and taxpayers are better because of it.
Two weeks ago Gov. Perry officially notified Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that Texas will not set up it’s own healthcare exchange as required by Obamacare (or is it ObamaTax?), nor will it be complicit in working with the federal government to do. That means it will be up to the federal government to set one up for Texas.
Gov. Perry absolutely made the right decision. Had Texas volunteered to take on the burden of implementing a healthcare exchange, we could expect to incur millions of dollars in administrative and bureaucratic costs.
And what would we get? Pretty much the same thing we’d get if the feds did it for us. The federal government would still regulate the design and sale of insurance policies, on top of running the exchanges themselves. But Texas would still pick up the tab.
And that tab would be expensive. A Wall Street Journal editorial post showed that Ohio estimates setting up an exchange would incur a cost of $63 million, and $43 million annually to keep it running. Texas would likely be even costlier.
Thankfully, Gov. Perry has opted Texas out of setting up its own exchange, which means the federal government is going to incur the financial burden.
How they plan to get the money for it is a different matter, however. Apparently a funding mechanism for the exchanges was left out of the 2,000+ page bill. Guess they should have read it first before they passed it.
And no surprise, with less than 300 days out before Obamacare is set to become law, the federal government still isn’t ready for it.
But yet it is still asking states to take on such costly burdens with virtually no added benefit and no clear direction.
And we’re to trust these guys with our health and well-being?
Thankfully we have a governor who understands your healthcare is best managed between you and your doctor, not you and a bureaucrat.
Above image source: Wikipedia Commons
