HPHWD

Despite the near-panic that broke out in Democratic circles a few weeks ago when Romney drew even in some national polls, Obama has remained the betting market’s choice. At Intrade, the online prediction site, the implied probability of an Obama victory is about fifty-six per cent. Interestingly, at Ladbrokes, the British bookie, he is a firmer favorite: the odds on him winning are 8-15. (Bet a hundred and fifty dollars to win eighty dollars.)

Perry joins other GOP governors — including Florida’s Rick Scott, South Carolina’s Nikki Haley and Wisconsin’s Scott Walker — in refusing to implement the Affordable Care Act. The Supreme Court upheld the law but said the federal government may not cut off a state’s Medicaid funds if they turn down the expansion. If a state refuses to set up the insurance market exchanges, the federal government does it for them.

There are many more and sometimes better alternatives that Gruber didn’t address. There is single payer, a stronger employer mandate, a larger expansion of Medicaid, more subsidies, or a default basic public insurance plan. Not only has the CBO previously modeled the effect of a strong employer mandate and found it would increase the number of people who get insurance, but the strong employer mandate in Hawaii is responsible for why they have one of the highest rates of people insured.

The most idiosyncratic choice was Kennedy’s. Few thought the mandate would survive without his vote. Our prediction (which was based on some judgment calls about the case) was that he would vote to strike with about 50 percent probability. Coming off a week in which he voted against mandatory life sentences for juvenile offenders it cannot be said that he is reliably liberal or conservative. He’s just hard to predict.

Expect to see continued GOP efforts to defund the law’s benefits and programs. Republican efforts to defund health care reform, however, are not quite as straightforward as they may seem. First, much of the funding for implementing the Act was actually appropriated in the Act itself (or provided for via transfers from other programs). CRS helpfully spells out the roughly $100 billion in spending included within the Act here. Only some of the portions of the Act were to be funded through future “discretionary” appropriations, as detailed here. So GOP efforts have to be tailored to the narrow range of authorized—but not yet funded—ACA programs. The alternative route— which the House GOP has been following for the fiscal year 2013 spending bills now in play—is to aim cuts at the operating budgets of the bureaucracies that will implement the law (namely, HHS and the IRS). By preventing bureaucrats from hiring or paying employees (and maintaining their computers and buying them pencils), Republicans could in essence do an end run around the ACA’s already appropriated funds. (What happens to those appropriated funds if HHS can’t hire employees to spend them? Good question.)