As the post-Supreme Court decision dust settles, oh so many members of the GOP reveal themselves to be quite histrionic; sometimes finger-wagging in a genially Reaganesque way, sometimes sternly yet pompously paternalistic, sometimes wildly enraged, sometimes utterly beside themselves, grief-stricken, hollowed out, as if their very souls have been removed by this heinous happenstance of ACA not being overturned.
So now it falls to the Tea Party governors, those defenders of the bastions, those true believers in the righteousness of the cause, which is of course, to defend the bottom line. And the nation looks to them to live up to their PRINCIPLES.
Pinchers of pennies, wearers of pince-nez, biters of coins, protectors of bureaucracies, they stampeded into government offices with promises to the gullible of save save save, we will overturn the taxers and spenders of the past and bring the Sovereign States into a new world of plenty, whatever the cost. Because who's going to pay that cost? Not the governors. Not those legislators. Not those stampeders. The true cost, of course, is paid, as always by the people. Because this whole thing is about saving the system over saving the people in it.
The evil beauty of putting this in the states' hands is that once the people involved have fallen out of the system, they're below the radar and beneath the concerns of those bureaucrats whose jobs are to do something about their situations, so now who cares about them? Outa sight, outa mind.
The bureaucracy won't go away, because bureaucracies never do, but the people they had been serving will. They'll become the lowest of the low, disappearing through what are no longer cracks, but have widened into crevasses, and thus no longer the worries of anyone except the 'social workers' and others of that ilk. Homeless. Prison fodder.
Which is also an exciting development, since so many states have contracted out many aspects of their prison systems to 'save money', so that will be another source of income for those states to exploit. Win win on the state level. ("Bet you wish you'd thought of that, other states, neener neener", they'll be saying.)
There hadn't been much concern expressed about the very poor before, literally (only someone as clueless as Mitt Romney can mention the very poor and the very rich together in the same sentence, both equally dismissed as being taken care of on the same level; if these governors have their way, can we make Romney eat those words?), and now, what little is left of the safety net is going to be intentionally removed, state by state, in an extremely short-sighted, pandering, egotistical, and stupid move by these arrogant fools who feel nothing but the eyes of the country on them.
These jerks can't turn back now. They are terrified of being accused of rejecting their 'values' or their 'base' (which is an apt description of many of the voters who put them into office), or even worse, flip-flopping.
Actually, that's a charge that even Mittens has managed to get reduced to 'swerving', so it could be worse.
Clearly, though, one way to save face, since the Big Medical Community won't let them actually get away with abandoning this golden goose, will be for the various bought and paid for state legislatures to force votes, the governors to veto them, and the legislatures to override the vetos. Problems solved, everybody saves face.