I'll admit I still get a little homesick. Even after 15 years of living in Colorado I miss my home state of Missouri from time to time.
I grew up in Kansas City, and, yes, we boast a lot more than just decades of unprecedented sports futility. We also have our jazz and blues, barbecue and, oh yeah, fountains. We have a lot of fountains.
But what Missourians don't have is much information about the health exchanges set to start enrolling in just eight short weeks. That's because Show-Me State voters not only thumbed their noses at Obamacare by refusing to set up its own state exchange, they went a step further by preventing (by law!) state and local officials from even working with the federal exchange. Talk about shedding your historical image as a bellwether state…
Now I'm not saying the state should embrace the landmark health reform law, but by taking such an aggressively uncooperative stance, lawmakers there are not only hurting their own constituents, they're giving the administration just one more excuse.
"If PPACA fails," I can hear Sec. Sebellius saying already, it's the governors' fault."
The attitude is not unlike that of the (admittedly rare) tantrums my 2-year-old daughter throws when bedtime comes too early for her. She wails and whines and throws Crayons like some kind of performance artist. But at the end of it all, it's still lights out.
