Critics of Gov. Pat McCrory’s decision to join the General Assembly in rejecting Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion and state-managed health insurance exchange often pointed to Republican governors in other states who took the opposite approach. New Jersey’s Chris Christie, Michigan’s Rick Snyder, and Florida’s Rick Scott come to mind.
But as John Hood points out in his latest article for National Review, those other governors “misread the situation and miscalculated the costs. There was no hurry to say yes or no. With Obamacare, the president needs cooperative state officials more than they need him.”
State decisions about Obamacare reflect an expectation about what the system will look like by the end of the decade. Governors and legislatures who think the health-care debate is over may just be trying to cut the best deal they can. That’s premature. There was never a reason for Governor Christie or other governors to act rashly. Obama-administration officials desperately want states to run exchanges and expand Medicaid. They’ll feel the same way two or three years from now. For governors, the right answer on both issues in 2013 is “not now.”
You don’t have to subscribe to National Review to read Hood’s insights about Obamacare. He frequently muses on the topic in his Daily Journal.
