Republicans Rise to Power, With Enmity For Health Law

The New York Times reports:

Until Election Day, when Wisconsin turned from navy blue to crimson red, this state aspired to lead the nation in carrying out the federal health care law and using its incentives to regulate and reshape the medical delivery system. The current governor, Jim Doyle, a two-term Democrat, praised the law as “a great benefit to Wisconsin.”

But on Jan. 3, when Scott Walker, a conservative Republican, is sworn in as governor and Republicans take control of the Legislature, that approach will screech to a halt. Mr. Walker said that on his first day he will authorize the state’s attorney general to join the multistate lawsuit challenging the law’s constitutionality. And late last week, the governor-elect wrote the Doyle administration to ask that it “temporarily freeze” efforts to put the law into effect.

The tectonic movement in state politics across the country after the Nov. 2 election has left the health care law in hostile hands in many places, just as responsibility for carrying out the law begins to fall most heavily on the states. But nowhere might the shift cause as much whiplash as in Wisconsin, one of two states, along with Maine, that moved from Democratic dominion to total Republican control.

An interesting article.