Governor Rick Perry has reportedly prevented State Representative John Zerwas and other legislators from making a potentially fatal blunder in the fight against Obamacare. According to local media, the governor’s office has discouraged Rep. Zerwas from championing legislation establishing a state-based Obamacare Health Benefits Exchange in Texas.
This is very good news. States that establish Obamacare exchanges are making a one-way, lose-lose bet on Obamacare, as I’ve written before. Governor Jindal in Louisiana and Governor Deal in Georgia have also recently learned this.
Our friends at the Heritage Foundation, who are most closely associated with exchanges, have also sounded the warning against abusing their original idea (which had the objective of pooling dollars from small employers) in order to seek federal Obamacare grants and grow Obamacare’s roots deeper into the soil. Here are a paper by Edmund Haislmaier and a blog entry by Nina Owcharenko.
The Governor is making the right decision. Here in CA we passed legislation setting up an Exchange. Outside the exchange, there are 138 individual plan designs that can be purchased. Inside the exchange will be 10. No need for it in States that offer a lot of competition.
Finally, if the Federal Government wants exchanges, let them set them up. They will be a disaster.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFirst things first, I do not like PPACA. It solves nothing and is pages and pages of health insurance reform, not healthcare reform.
That being said, do you really want the federal government having full control of the Texas exchange? Really? You want it to be a disaster and hurt Texans? That makes no sense at all.
Do some research first, read the bill and discover that health insurance agents have been fighting like hell to make sure our exchange is the best it can be.
You have 2 options here; either stick your head in the sand and hope that PPACA will be repealed or deal with the sad fact that it is law now. Rant and rave all you want about how it’s a massively messed up law (because it is), and fight to fix it or make it better.
I don’t want the federal government in control of my exchange, because Texans will get insurance through it. Some employers WILL drop their benefits and people WILL go into the exchange. You really want to punish those people? Fine let the feds run it. What happens when it’s one of very few options we have left for health insurance. You’ve just shot yourself in the foot.
Governor Perry is wrong and doesn’t understand. And Mr. John Graham so are you.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNo Sir, I believe it is past time for negotiation, it's time to take the bull by the horns. That is just my thoughts. Do what you feel is best for use TEXANS.
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