The House voted today to fully repeal Obamacare.  It is important that we keep Obamacare at the forefront of the debate, but we must also act in a meaningful way to disrupt its implementation.  The more smoothly this behemoth is enacted, the harder it will be to repeal.  To that end, we turn to the 29 Republican governors to lead the way.

The one practical silver lining of the Supreme Court’s egregious ruling is that states can reject the expansion of Medicaid rolls without facing reprisal from the federal government.  Medicaid is already the largest expenditure for most state budgets and this expansion will bankrupt the states while creating irrevocable dependency across the country.  Every Republican governor must flatly refuse to implement the expansion.

The other lynch pin of Obamacare implementation is the creation of state-run health exchanges.  These exchanges will be used to help individuals comply with the mandate to buy health insurance – insurance that will become more expensive as a result of the law.  Once again, by refusing to set up these exchanges, governors can seriously disrupt the bulk of the law before it goes into effect in 2014, buying us more time until we can repeal the law next year.

Here are the governors who have already committed to rejecting or are leaning towards rejecting the Medicaid expansion:

• Terry Branstad – IA
• Sam Brownback- KS
• Phil Bryant – MS
• Dennis Daugaard-SD (committed at least until after the elections)
• Nikki Haley-SC (will also block health exchanges)
• Dave Heineman-NE
• Bobby Jindal-LA (will also block health exchanges)
• Rick Perry-TX (will also block health exchanges)
• Rick Scott-FL  (will also block health exchanges)
• Scott Walker – WI (will also block health exchanges)
• Jay Nixon, the Democrat governor of Missouri is also leaning against implementation

Here are the governors who have issued statements equivocating over implementation and are taking a ‘wait and see approach’:

• Robert Bentley-AL
• Jan Brewer-AZ
• Chris Christie-NJ
• Tom Corbett-PA
• Jack Dalrymple-ND
• Mitch Daniels- IN
• Nathan Deal – GA
• Mary Fallin- OK
• Gary Herbert – UT
• John Kasich-OH
• Paul LePage-ME (unsure, despite calling it the Gestapo)
• Susana Martinez-NM
• Bob McDonnell – VA
• Matt Meade-WY
• Butch Otter – ID
• Sean Parnell- AK
• Bill Haslam-TN
• Brian Sandoval-NV
• Rick Snyder-MI

Many of these governors have expressed their desire to study the effects of the expansion and exchanges.  They say they want to digest the Supreme Court’s ruling and its ramifications on the states.  Why the equivocation?  We are in the bottom of the ninth inning here.  Implementation of these provisions will bankrupt their states, create incorrigible dependency, and drive up the cost of private insurance to the extent that everyone else will be forced to buy government-subsidized healthcare.  What else would you want to expend your political capital on if not over implementation of Obamacare?

We need to repeal the law next year and defund it this year.  To that end, Reps. Jim Jordan and Michele Bachmann are circulating a letter to leadership requesting all members to vote against any appropriations bill that contains funding for Obamacare.  The letter already has 80 signatures and counting (view letter and supporters here).  However, we need to fight Obamacare on all fronts and the most immediate way to stop it is in the states.  We can’t wait.

We must also put pressure on the governors and state legislators in red and purple states that are controlled in part by Democrats, such as Arkansas, Kentucky, West Virginia, North Carolina, Montana, and Colorado.

Please call your governors and tell them not to implement the Medicaid expansion or health exchanges prescribed under the worst legislation in American history.