Thanks, Republicans

Some States Weigh Unthinkable Option: Ending Medicaid.

Huge budget shortfalls are prompting a handful of states to begin discussing a once-unthinkable scenario: dropping out of the Medicaid insurance program for the poor.

Elected and appointed officials in nearly a half-dozen states, including Washington, Texas and South Carolina, have publicly [proposed] the idea. Wyoming and Nevada this year produced detailed studies of what would happen should they withdraw from the program. Wyoming found that Medicaid accounts for 63% of the state's nursing-home revenue.

The idea of abandoning Medicaid as a solution is so extreme that even proponents don't expect any state will follow through, but officials are floating the discussions because dire budgetary pressures have forced them to at least look at even the most drastic options.

And here's a taste of the Mad Privatization Skillz the country will come to know if voters have the terrible idea to turn my garbage nightmare of a governor into their president:

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said he put a different proposal before the Republican governors assembled in San Diego: that they all band together to create a multistate insurance pool for the uninsured. But the states would do it, he said, only on the condition that the federal government agreed to eliminate some of the mandates embedded in the health overhaul.

Just ugh.