Indiana's Governor Daniels On ObamaCare And Indiana's Future

An essay and video from Governor Daniels here.

Indiana is still afloat. In fact, we’ve fared better than most. We continue to meet our obligations without raising taxes, and the reserves we carefully built and protected will get us through the downturn.

But as if we did not already have enough on our plates, the passage and implementation of Obamacare presents us with a whole new set of challenges and a costly to-do list.

I note with special sadness that first and foremost amongst the bill’s consequences will be the probable demise of the Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP). This program is currently providing health insurance to 50,000 low-income Hoosiers. With its Health Savings Account-style personal accounts and numerous incentives for healthy lifestyle choices, it has been enormously popular and successful.

Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid, soon to cover one in every four citizens, will not only scoop up most of HIP’s participants, but will also cost the state between $3.1 and $3.9 billion over the next decade. It is hard to see how my successors as governor will be able to avoid a steep state tax increase to pay for it. Meanwhile, our medical device companies and small businesses will shed jobs as they wrestle with the taxes and penalties levied to help finance Washington’s “reforms.”

Now, this man is:

1. Not running for President.
2. Not a funny-looking guy on a motorcycle with American flags flying on his way to a Tea Party rally.
3. Not a guy living in Momma's basement who obsesses about Obama's birthplace or religious affiliation.
4. In other words, not Astro-Turf that the White House can dismiss.

He's responsible for running one of the largest states in the Union, with a budget larger than a lot of small countries. Geographically, Indiana stretches from the outskirts of Chicago (oh, joy!) to the southern reaches of Kentucky, where the accents and culture are very Dixie. It is a huge industrial state, a huge agricultural state, smack in the middle of the United States. Indiana is not Wyoming.

If we wonder why jobs are not being created, we would do well to read his words.