Oklahoma resist reach of Obama control freak government

Washington Post:

The Supreme Court may have declared that the government can order Americans to get health insurance, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to sign up. 

Nowhere is that more evident than Oklahoma, a conservative state with an independent streak and a disdain for the strong arm of government. The state cannot even get residents to comply with car insurance laws; roughly a quarter of the drivers here lack it, one of the highest rates in the country. 

When it comes to health insurance, the effort to sign people up isn’t likely to get much help from the state. Antipathy toward President Obama’s signature health-care overhaul runs so deep that when the federal government awarded Oklahoma a large grant to plan for the new law, the governor turned away the money — all $54 million of it. 

The idea that the federal government will persuade reluctant people here to get insurance elicited head-shaking chuckles at Cattlemen’s Steakhouse, an iconic old restaurant in the Stockyards City neighborhood, which is lined with street banners reading “Where the Wild West still lives.” 

“That kind of frontier mentality maintains in Oklahoma, and it’s not a bad thing. It’s a good thing,” said Mark Cunningham, 64, an Army veteran having breakfast with a couple of friends in a dimly lighted booth recently. Considering the car insurance statistic, he said, “I suspect they’re going to run into the same kind of trouble on health insurance.” 

Although Obama’s health-care overhaul cleared a major hurdle last month when it was upheld by the Supreme Court, the government continues to face challenges as it implements the largest social program in decades. Among the biggest is the resistance, both personal and political, that officials face as they try to achieve the law’s most ambitious goal — ­extending health coverage to 30 million uninsured Americans. 

That includes people who will become newly eligible for Medicaid coverage and others who can buy insurance through new state exchanges. Beginning in 2014, most Americans will be required to get health coverage or face a fine come tax time. But it will not be a simple task to get so many people to purchase coverage, and the Congressional Budget Office estimates that, for a variety of reasons, fewer than half of the 30 million will actually gain coverage in that first year.

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There is more.

The funny thing about this story is the assumption that the law will still be in effect after the election this fall.  Most of the people of Oklahoma will vote for those dedicated to overturning a law they view as a monstrosity.  For that reason, the resistance the writer sees will manifest itself in votes.  If that is not successful, then you will see other forms of resistance to this massive intrusion by the feds.

As for as teh vote goes, Obama will be lucky to get a third of the votes in Oklahoma.