Last week, an overwhelming majority of Connecticut legislators passed a bill, SB-11, that would give the executive branch the power to decide whether health plans should be allowed to increase their premiums at rates that keep pace with medical costs. Health plans may be a politically attractive target, but giving politicians the power to approve premiums causes other problems – and doesn’t even hold down rate increases.

Despite advice from most free-market analysis, some Republican governors are executing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) by establishing Health Benefits Exchanges. These governors dislike PPACA, but they believe that exchanges can be vehicles for more choice than the federal law anticipates.

But I think that the real news is how much difficulty states that want to implement PPACA as fast as possible are having. Read the entire article here.

In my second Forbes.com The Apothecary blog, I look again at the argument (supported by almost everyone on Wall Street) that Pfizer should be broken up.  Certainly, there's a credible contrary view.

Read it here.

The surprise victory of the Democratic candidate in NY-26’s special election yesterday teaches a curious lesson: Seniors who rose up against Obamacare’s Medicare cuts at town-hall meetings in the summer of 2009 appear to have risen up against Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan in the spring of 2011.

Or maybe they didn't.  Read more at National Review Online.