Obamacare Fight May Be Near an End

Indiana is expanding Medicaid in an experimental program:

For the first time since Obamacare split the country in two, the conditions for a cease-fire have begun to appear.
An architect of this detente — although he denies any such intent — is Mike Pence, who as a conservative Republican congressman in 2010 fought bitterly against the law and who as governor of Indiana refused to implement it.
But Pence, after intensive negotiations with the Obama administration, just announced his intent to take the money Obamacare provides for Medicaid expansion and to use it on his own terms to broaden health-care coverage for the working poor.
For Pence, a happy warrior for conservatism and a possible 2016 presidential contender, the reason is pragmatic: If he could get money under an Obamacare waiver to enlarge a market-driven health-care program in his state, there would be no point in cutting off his nose to spite his face.
“When it comes to the issue of health care, I believe that people in my party need to be solutions conservatives, offering real alternatives to the big-government answers,” he lectured Monday at the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank, on a visit to Washington. Conservatives, he said, “need to ensure that the safety net is well-designed and strong enough to provide a firm basis for those starting out on life’s ladder.”

 Sure, the program that will be implemented will be a giveaway to for-profit insurance companies and will be more expensive than just expanding Medicaid straight-up, but when an idiot like Mike Pence realizes that it is stupid to fuck over his own citizens AND the hospitals in his state, you know the reflexive opposition is almost dead.  As Indiana goes, so go the other morons.