Wisconsin Gazette Questions Walker Obstructing ObamaCare

Nice job on a complex issue:

In addition to turning away the money for Medicare expansion and throwing poor people off health care, Walker refused to set up a state insurance marketplace, raising an outcry from consumer advocates, doctors, nurses, health insurers, business groups and other stakeholders. Instead, he’s forcing Wisconsinites to go through a federally-created marketplace....

Even those who understand the political gamble Walker is making with Wisconsin’s health care have a hard time understanding how he can morally justify working to deny health care accessibility to the poor and middle class. 

Some pundits say Walker doesn’t understand the risk he’s taking just a year after Democrats succeeded in casting Republicans as the party of the prosperous. 

Other Republican governors understand, and that’s why they’re climbing on board with Obamacare. 

Lori Lodes of the Center for American Progress, a liberal-leaning think tank that supports the law, put it this way: “They can’t risk pursuing a partisan agenda that would turn down taxpayer dollars and deny their constituents health care.” 

In Michigan, where Snyder faces an uphill re-election fight and there is disagreement in his party about the law, the governor has argued that receiving an estimated additional $1.4 billion in federal money to bring roughly 500,000 residents under health coverage makes economic sense. 

Ohio’s Kasich, also faced with a difficult re-election road, promotes expanding Medicaid as a moral issue.... 

Other Republican governors who have agreed to the Medicaid expansion include Jan Brewer of Arizona, Chris Christie of New Jersey and Jack Dalrymple of North Dakota. Arizona, where Brewer isn’t seeking re-election, and North Dakota are Republican-leaning states; New Jersey, where Christie is running this fall, is considered Democrat-leaning.