The Democrat rulers who have singularly more knowledge than all of us who in our daily decisions compose the free market have foisted another unsustainable entitlement program upon us, Obamacare. It was touted as providing medical care to all, providing better access and free provider choice and at the same time reducing the aggregate costs of medical care.

Of course, it has done none of that. But it has added another Trillion dollar entitlement program that our grandchildren are going to be paying for with the meager compensation they receive from their Chinese employers.

It has also supplied the rulers with another discretionary plumb with which to grant waivers from its 2000 pages of rules and regulations. Until now, these waivers have been granted or denied on the basis of political pull. So the unions regularly get waivers as do those political organizations like AARP who supported Omabacare. But those gutsy or principled enough to oppose the Obamacare leviathan are denied these plumbs.

Part of the financial farce of the legislation was to expand Medicaid enrollment by 25% and push the costs of that expanded welfare onto the states, so the costs would not count against the financial costs charged against the unsustainable program. Apparently if you add a new unsustainable entitlement to an existing almost bankrupt entitlement, you get Obama’s dependent but bankrupt society.

Well the states are starting to squawk. Governor Mitch Daniels’ WSJ op-ed, An Obamacare Appeal From the States, sets it out pretty well. He correctly points out that the law is a massive mistake amplifying the big drivers of over consumption and excessive pricing. “Why not, it’s free? Reimbursement…and, The more I do, the more I get. Provider payments.

Daniels hopes for legislative repeal or judicial strike down of the monstrosity but as the governor of a state cannot rely on that. He and 20 other governors have written to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius requesting relief from some of the law’s worst strictures. He correctly points out that the law not only increases Medicaid costs by 25% but also commandeers the states’ employees to enforce the new law with insurance exchanges and police powers. If a state refuses, the federal government will operate the exchange within the state. Thus opening Pandora’s box!

Daniels has written Sebelius conditioning Indiana’s participation of several conditions:
• Flexibility in deciding which insurers offer insurance in the state.
• Freedom of choice in coverage, thus not forcing only single costly policies.
• Elimination of discrimination against consumer driven plans, like HSAs.
• Freedom to move Medicaid beneficiaries into the exchanges.
• Reimbursement of the full costs of Indiana’s administration of the law.
• An independent projection of expected enrollment, given the law’s incentives to employers to off load employee insurance programs.

Daniels recognizes the chances are slim to none that Sebelius will grant this effective rewrite of the legislation. But he argues that she should recognize that the paternalistic, command-control nature of the legislation should be recognized as a failure. This because one small part of it, the high-risk preexisting condition pools, have been a failure. A majority of the states refused to participate in these pools, leaving the task to the Feds. Sebelius failed miserably at it with costs far above projections used to get the law passed. Daniels called it a “fiasco.”

Let’s pray that the Supreme Court accepts certiorari on an expedited basis from the various lower court Obamacare cases. Mitch Daniel’s op-ed only scratches the surface of all the wasted economic activity—public and private—attendant to this fiasco that is Obamacare.