Driving A Compact Over Obamacare

MoJo's Stephanie Mencimer files this report on the Tea Party's next plan to kill Obamacare by turning to the state level.

The tea party has a new plan to attack health care reform. While some conservative activists are still fighting to get the law defunded and eventually repealed, others are organizing behind a radical, states'-rights proposal that would go beyond merely derailing health reform. Egged on by tea partiers, at least a dozen states are now contemplating legislation that supporters believe would allow them to seize control of and administer virtually all federal health care programs operating in their states and exempt them from the requirements of the health care law. That includes Medicare, the government health care program for the elderly on which a sizable number of tea partiers rely.

The vehicle for this reform end run is called the health care compact, an interstate compact not very different in theory from the ones states use to create regional transit authorities, for instance. Recently, the nation's largest tea party group, the Tea Party Patriots, has thrown its weight behind the concept, seeing it as another way of downsizing the federal government. But the group may have other motivations, too. TPP has received a significant amount of money from the measure's backer, the Health Care Compact Alliance, an organization bankrolled by the right-wing heir to a Texas construction company fortune. Last month, the Alliance underwrote TPP's policy summit in Phoenix for a sponsorship advertised at $250,000. It has also become a regular advertiser on TPP's website and email promotions.

Along with TPP's endorsement comes its considerable army of activists, who are working to persuade state legislatures to pass laws to join the interstate compact rather than to implement parts of the new federal health care reform law. The Georgia House, which recently refused to move legislation that would create health insurance "exchanges" as required under the Affordable Care Act, also passed health care compact legislation. States including Tennessee, Oklahoma, Montana, Arizona, and Missouri are currently considering similar bills.

The heart of the compact maneuver is, ironically, a kind of collective bargaining, something that Tea Party faithful insist has no place in government, as it hurts the taxpayer.  It's states banding together to resist the "tyranny" of health care reform, and if that does set off alarm bells, it should.  If enough states join this compact rather than implement the law as passed, the Tea Party figures it can effectively destroy the law from within.

But remember, the point here is to tell the federal government that it has no right to compel states to follow the law.  Compact supporters want enough states to exempt themselves from the PPACA so that the law can't possibly work at a national level.  Even better, they believe that the compact, being interstate commerce, will solely be regulated by Congress and not the President.  They figure they'll get the money and none of the executive branch oversight as long as House Republicans insist that how the money must be doled out, and Senate Dems are forced to follow.

Or hey, they can just play for time until 2013 in which case they figure they'll have Republicans everywhere who will simply eliminate the PPACA completely.  Either way, they win.

It's a surprisingly good plan.  It's going to hurt millions of actual American citizens, but it's not like the Republicans give a damn.

Duh, winning.