Republicans Wanted Flexibility On Health Care; Obama Offers It; Republicans Say Not Good Enough

President Obama’s offer to give more flexibility to governors and allow them to opt out of the most controversial parts of the Affordable Heath Care law is still not enough for many Republican governors. States can opt out by 2014 when the new rules go into effect if they can prove costs will stay down and enough people will be insured.

“The waiver really doesn’t address the major structural flaw that all of us are facing right now,” Texas Gov. Rick Perry (pictured) told reporters in Washington on Monday. “I have great concern that the administration is not going to go forward with the flexibility that we’re asking for.”

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell also says the president’s offer isn’t enough. And Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour said, “The devil’s in the details.”

If Congress approves a change along the lines of what Obama offered, states could gain exemption by 2014 rather than 2017 from some central and controversial elements of the law: that most Americans carry health insurance, that many employers offer their workers coverage, and that states create insurance marketplaces to help individuals and small businesses buy health plans that meet federal rules.

But states would have to show that insurance benefits would be as affordable and apply to the same number of people as the federal law, and that a states’s rules wouldn’t add to the federal budget.  Governors, particularly Republican ones, say they want more flexibility. If they can find creative solutions an achieve the same objectives, here is an opportunity. Or maybe they don’t have the same objectives.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.