InsureBlog, March 19, 2010

With perhaps a third of practicing physicians threatening to "Go Galt" should ObamaCare pass, it's easy to overlook another potentially devastating effect of this monstrosity: "

Nevada, Hawaii, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Georgia will see significant reductions in dollars available to fund Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance Programs."


Well, unless their CongressCritters can wrangle (Rangel?) a CornHustler-type deal for themselves, as well. This dire prediction comes to us from the Pacific Research Institute (a San Francisco-based think-tank). According to an email we received recently from the PRI, "federal reform could cause more people to leave state-regulated private health insurance for either federally regulated private insurance, or government-run health plans."

The net result: “reduced revenues for states charging premium taxes on state-regulated health insurance."

The issue is that by (literally) making a federal case of health care "reform," ObamaCare is poised to (deliberately?) scuttle state-based efforts, and to directly (and negatively) affect states' revenues. The report singled out the handful of states mentioned above because of the disparate impact "reform" will have on them and its citizens.

A cynic might wonder whether ObamaCare backers would consider this a bug, or a feature.