It is becoming apparent even to members of the party that gave us ObamaCare that helping to implement the law by establishing a health insurance Exchange is a bad deal for states. Yesterday, NewHampshireWatchdog.org reported:

Governor Lynch blocks Health Insurance Exchange for NH

(CONCORD) Governor John Lynch [D] this morning signed legislation blocking implementation of a health insurance exchange in New Hampshire. The Obama Administration has been urging states to set up exchanges under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known as ObamaCare.

Lynch has supported setting up a New Hampshire exchange, including the proposal in his State of the State address in February. Senate legislation setting up an exchange, SB 163, won Committee approval in January before stalling on the Senate floor. Opponents argued that a state-run exchange would put New Hampshire taxpayers on the hook for the costs of administering much of the federal health care law, while giving the state little flexibility from federal mandates.

Representative Andrew Manuse (R-Derry) introduced HB 1297 to prevent state officials from setting up an exchange without legislative approval. Josiah Bartlett Center President Charlie Arlinghaus led the charge for the bill, arguing that if federal officials wanted to set up a New Hampshire insurance exchange, they could pay for it themselves. (The Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy is the parent organization of New Hampshire Watchdog.)

Under the new law, state health and insurance officials may share information with their federal counterparts but may not take any steps to implement a state-controlled insurance marketplace.

Governor Lynch’s office did not respond to requests for comment on HB 1297.

Yesterday, Cato released “The Independent Payment Advisory Board: PPACA’s Anti-Constitutional and Authoritarian Super-Legislature,” by the Goldwater Institute’s Diane Cohen and me.

Today, National Review Online publishes our op-ed based on that study. An excerpt:

[U]nder the statute as written, if Congress fails to repeal IPAB in 2017, the secretary must implement IPAB’s edicts even if Congress votes to block them. Nancy Pelosi was right: We needed to pass ObamaCare to find out what was in it. We’re still finding out.

ObamaCare is so unconstitutional, it’s absurd. It delegates legislative powers that Congress cannot delegate. It creates a permanent super-legislature to supplement—and when conflicts arise, to supplant—Congress. It tries to amend the Constitution via statute rather than the amendment procedure of Article V.

ObamaCare proves economist Friedrich Hayek’s axiom that government direction of the economy threatens both democracy and freedom. After decades of failing to deliver high-quality, low-cost health care through Medicare, Congress struck upon the “solution” of creating a permanent super-legislature—or worse, an economic dictator—with the power to impose taxes and other laws that the people would reject.

Fortunately, one Congress cannot bind future Congresses by statute. If the Supreme Court fails to strike down ObamaCare, Congress should exercise its power to repeal IPAB—and the rest of ObamaCare with it.

Cohen is also the lead attorney for the plaintiffs in Coons v. Geithner, which challenges the constitutionality of IPAB and which a federal court has put on hold pending the Supreme Court’s ruling in the individual-mandate and Medicaid-mandate cases.

Remember that guy?

Well today, the Wall Street Journal reprints a series of emails showing how his administration colluded with drug-company lobbyists to pass ObamaCare. Never mind the nonsense about Big Pharma making an $80 billion “contribution” to pass the law. An accompanying Wall Street Journal editorial explains that Big Pharma “understood that a new entitlement could be a windfall as taxpayers bought more of their products.”

The money quote from these emails comes from Pfizer lobbyist/Republican/former George W. Bush appointee Anthony Principi. Even though the drug companies were donating to all the right politicians and pledging to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on pro-ObamaCare advertising campaigns and grassroots lobbying, President Obama still accused unnamed ”special interests” of trying to stop ObamaCare in order to preserve “a system that worked for the insurance and the drug companies.” Principi was indignant:

We’re trying to kill it? I guess we didn’t give enough in contributions and media ads supporting hcr. Perhaps no amount would suffice.

The nerve. I smell a campaign slogan. “Barack Obama: a Politician Who Cannot Stay Bought.”

The Journal adds:

[Former Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry] Waxman [D-CA] recently put out a rebuttal memo dismissing these email revelations as routine, “exactly what Presidents have always done to enact major legislation.” Which is precisely the point—the normality is the scandal.

And which critics have argued from the beginning. As I wrote more than two years ago, ObamaCare is corruption:

Each new power ObamaCare creates would be targeted by special interests looking for special favors, and held for ransom by politicians seeking a slice of the pie.

ObamaCare would guarantee that crucial decisions affecting your medical care would be made by the same people, through the same process that created the Cornhusker Kickback, for as far as the eye can see.

When ObamaCare supporters, like Kaiser Family Foundation president Drew Altman, claim that “voters are rejecting the process more than the substance” of the legislation, they’re missing the point.

When government grows, corruption grows.  When voters reject these corrupt side deals, they are rejecting the substance of ObamaCare.

Fortunately, voters so detest ObamaCare that there’s a real chance to wipe it from the books. This video explains how state officials can strike a blow against ObamaCare/corruption: