Having utterly failed to convince the American people to embrace Obamacare, and facing a steadfast House of Representatives that has passed a bill to repeal Obamacare by a margin of 56 votes, the Obama administration — always probing for weakness — is now testing the resolve of Republican governors. So far, the verdict is mixed.
For months, the administration has been reaching out to GOP governors and trying to convince them to work with administration officials to implement Obamacare. Specifically, President Obama and Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius want states to implement Obamacare’s “exchanges,” the government-controlled points of access to health care that — if Obamacare isn’t repealed — would become essentially the only place where one could buy insurance that isn’t provided by an employer. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that a cool $1.0 trillion of Americans’ tax dollars would funnel into these exchanges, and thus to private insurance companies, during Obamacare’s real first dozen years (2014 to 2025).
