Horror Stories of ObamaCare: State Exchanges

Obamacare Makes States Sick, Too! (Source: Zazzle.com)

At least three state legislatures have admitted for the record that their attempts to create statewide health care exchanges have met with widespread dissatisfaction, coupled with a desire to exchange their role and return the responsibility to the federal government.

At first, limited government advocates may fear that the states are giving up their power because they have surrendered their health insurance exchanges. On the other hand, the whole insurance exchange folly was a federal mandate which has done nothing but push the limits of the what the federal government should be doing in the first place.

Despite the most desperate pleadings of progressives, the United States Constitution exists as an instrument of law which binds the federal government to a clear set of enumerated, delineated powers. If the Constitution were a living, as in easily transformative document, then the Framers would have never framed such a document in the first place.

Nor would they have accommodated a Bill of Rights, an invention and instigation from the several states which automatically recognized that more concentrated power could cause more trouble than the states or their citizens were willing to tolerate.

The several states also act as laboratories for good or bad ideas. Not just Massachusetts, but also Tennessee experimented with statewide health insurance coverage provided by taxes and bureaucracy. The measure created cost overruns in both states.

Vermont has tried to set up their health care exchange to implement a single-payer system, and already Democrats along with Republicans are running from the scheme.

Now about those Obamacare state health insurance exchanges.

Oregon has spent $200 million on the state health care exchange Cover Oregon (with calls to stop the spending. Only so much good money can go after bad and "cover" for the failures of a failing system). The state has fired the second administrator for the site, as well. How many people have they managed to cover? Nobody! The Democratic Governor is appalled and frustrated, while Oregon GOP, along with four US Senate candidates, are rearing up to take back the Beaver State. The media frenzy has established the legacy for this state exchange: one big joke.

Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber (D) released a blistering report about Cover Oregon's numerous failures, yet refused to cover questions relating to corruption.

Then there's Maryland, which was one-party Democratic long before California began drifting left. Let us not forget that before she was a San Francisco liberal, Nancy Pelosi was the daughter of the Congressman then the mayor who ran Baltimore, Maryland — not that such distinctions are noteworthy. And who can forget RINO Constance Morello, who ran as a Republican only because she could not compete with an incumbent Democrat in a primary.

Now, the current (of course, Democratic) Governor, Martin O'Malley, wanted to outflank the Obama Administration for its left-wing policies, and the state jumped head-first into setting up its own state health insurance exchange in accordance with the "Affordable" Care Act.

Just one problem: the legislation has proven to be anything but affordable, and in spite of their most liberal efforts, the Maryland exchange, Maryland Health Connection, despite over $100 million, has failed, and is beyond repair, that the state's exchange commission is seeking out the computer systems in the Connecticut exchange to start over.

What a waste of money.

O'Malley still tried put lipstick on the pig, or a ruby red coat of paint on the dilapidated jalopy:

“We still have stuck applications. We still wrestle with it every day,” O'Malley said at a news conference. “The clock was ticking, and we have been changing the flat tires on this rolling car for the last five, going on six months now. And it has gotten better with every new fix applied to it, [but it is] still not working as it was supposed to work.”

It was getting better, yet the state officials cannot get the website to work – that means it was never better to begin with. Of course, O'Malley and his irrepressible liberal caucus never let something like semantics or the truth get in the way of explaining failed policies. Was it not President Obama who asserted over and over: "If you like your health care, you can keep it"?

And how about that Connecticut health care exchange, Access Health CT? Has it worked any better? Connecticut wants more money to expand.

The Massachusetts state health care exchange is also on life-support, with rising costs (now the highest in the country). I spoke with a state assemblyman, who shared not only facts and figures relating to website malfunctions, but also cost overruns, He shared individual accounts, as did one of his constituents directly.

And in Rhode Island, both Democrats and Republicans want to end throwing what little good state revenues remain after a bad health insurance exchange, Health Source RI, which has not attracted nearly enough young people. I interviewed lawmakers, a private benefits manager, and a psychiatric administrator for one of the health insurance companies in Rhode Island, and they all had one story to tell: the state health care exchange is too costly. Instead of wasting state dollars on the bloated and costly system, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle want to block any state funds from bolstering the failed system.

The state exchanges have gone bust in three states, with Vermont teetering on the brink because of their progressive overachieving. Not just individuals, patients, and doctors are caring less for Obamacare, but entire states are finding this law to be a lawless (not flawless) waste of time, energy, and money.