Health care reform an unfunded mandate

The costs are unknown, other than known to be astronomical. This is more from the feds that the states will have to pick up on their own, in addition to all the other mandates. Many states are already at or near bankruptcy.

The session exemplifies the overwhelming sense of confusion among state lawmakers and health care officials around the country as they scramble to figure out what exactly health care reform means for their governments, their citizens and, not least of all, their budgets. With estimates ranging from state savings of $1 billion to $27 billion in additional costs, the one thing clear about health care reform is that little, if anything, is actually clear.

“It’ll probably be 10 years before it all shakes out,” says Chris Whatley, of the Council of State Governments, only half-jokingly. “This will push the fabric of the state-federal relationship in new directions, and we don’t know how it will all come out.”