Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Missing Mississippi

Y'know, for an agency facing a quickly-approaching deadline, the folks at HHS seem to have an attitude problem:

"[Secretary Shecantbeserious] rejected approval of the Mississippi insurance commissioner’s state-based exchange application ... To be successfully approved and to even work as a marketplace, a state-based exchange would need working relationships with other state agencies ... there was no possibility of coordinating strategy with other agencies under his authority"

Which is all well and good, but fails to address the Magnolia State's main problem with the premise, to wit:

"[T]he health insurance exchanges mandated by [The ObamaTax] are not free-market exchanges. Instead, they are a portal to a massive and unaffordable new federal entitlement program. They trigger new taxes on businesses and will ultimately drive more people onto Medicaid rolls"

Please, Gov Bryant, tell us what you really think.

Underscoring the divide is the inherent conflict between what Madame Secretary wants and that pesky 10th Amendment. It seems reasonable to predict that this issue will also head to SCOTUS in the near future. How that plays out will be interesting to watch.

ADDENDUM: In the comments, Mike points out the fallacy of Ms Kathy's contention that that there's "no possibility of coordinating strategy with other agencies under his authority." In his link, a local paper reports that (as Mike puts it) "the federales tell Mississippi that there's every possibility of coordinating with the same state agencies, under the same governor,  in a fed-state partnership Exchange."

So which is it, Madame Secretary?
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