The problem with that logic is that, as Jack McHugh of the Mackinac Center pointed out earlier this week (citing a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece), the "escape clause" that Governors Brewer, Scott, Kasich, and now Snyder are citing from a three-page Bricker & Eckler law firm memo is in reality a federal bait-and-switch roach motel.  Quoting from the Journal (emphasis in source):

The Affordable Care Act mandated that states convert this joint state-federal program into a new, larger and far more expensive project in perpetuity.  Democrats did not include any provision or opt-out clause that would let states leave new Medicaid in the future or revert to Medicaid in its old form.  Democrats even wrote the bill so that if states failed to join new Medicaid, they would lose every federal Medicaid dollar, including the ones for the old program.

The Supreme Court said this coercion was unconstitutional.  But unfortunately for Mr. Kasich and his fellow flippers, Chief Justice John Roberts and six of his colleagues did not stipulate a right to leave Medicaid at any time when they rewrote ObamaCare.  They merely ruled that the threat to take away all federal funding if states did not join new Medicaid violated the Constitution's separation of powers.

The High Court's precedents say Congress can attach conditions to federal funds, akin to a contract, but Congress cannot use the spending power to force states to sign it.  So while Congress can't commandeer the states to do its bidding, it can offer them more or less any bargain it likes and states have the choice to voluntarily accept the terms or not.  In the case of new Medicaid, the states can now freely take the contract as originally offered: accede to the new program, the free money, and the lack of an opt-out clause.

That the Columbus-based law firm was citing "guidance" from the Health and Human Services Department (guidance that, being not in the Federal Register, lacks any enforceability whatsoever) isn't going to help much when federal bureaucrats reveal the federal sales pitch for the bait-and-switch that it is.  The lyrics of "Hotel California" come to mind.  The fact that this is the same HHS whose secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, has been caught abusing her office to conduct a shakedown of the healthcare industry in order to raise the funds to implement the federal exchange network ought to be a great big waving red flag.  Once the Medicaid Expansion is accepted, the only way out is to terminate all Medicaid funding; let's see you geniuses sell that to the hoi polloi.

The common premise of the arguments that the squishy republican leadership is using to shove this garbage down their constituents' throats is that the NFIB v. Sebelius decision, coupled with President Obama's re-election, has effectively rendered ObamaCare as settled law.  However, as I explained both the last time we had this conversation and in my dissection of the SCOTUS decision, the only thing that a judicial body can settle is legal precedent.  Only a legislative body can make enforceable laws, and "legislative entrenchment," the concept that a current legislative session can insulate its acts from repeal or alteration by subsequent legislatures, has been long considered to run counter to constitutional principles.  So, to review a point that I've stated at least thrice before, there's nothing even remotely settled about ObamaCare.

As a good friend of mine made an observation regarding yesterday's committee vote to discharge and report 2013 House Bill 4714 to the house floor "with the recommendation that the substitute (H-3) be adopted and that the bill then pass" (according to House Journal 58).  His observation was:

It is totally within the power of the Committee Chairman to decide whether or not to schedule a vote on a specific bill.  Typically the committee chair will not schedule a vote until he has a majority of his party on the committee voting in favor.  In this case the Republican Chair resorted to more Democrat votes than Republican votes.  This bill could have and should have been killed in committee.  What we have here is a "Republican" cabal, liberal or compromised on Medicaid expansion, who will cross the aisle to secure enough Democrat votes to overcome and outvote his own Party.  This is extraordinary, and so disappointing.

. . . which makes the second time regarding the state-level implementation of a key aspect of ObamaCare that "republican" legislative leadership has used the Democrat Caucus to achieve a voting majority.  In both cases, the democrats outnumbered the republicans voting in the affirmative.

That the GoverNerd is openly courting democrat votes to implement both the insurance exchanges and the Medicaid expansion ought to, in and of itself, indicate that there's a snake in the woodpile somewhere.  I mean, if this really were a good idea, then the numerical legislative majorities that the Michigan Republican Party enjoys would virtually guarantee passage in both legislative chambers, similar to how quickly the Workplace Fairness & Equity Act was enacted.  But the shenanigans that are going on with regard to aiding and abetting the implementation of a socialist takeover of our medical industry (along with ~1/6 of our state economy), and the deafening silence coming from MIGOP leadership, is eerily reminiscent of another Trojan Horse gambit by progressive movers and shakers . . . the attempt to deceive our elected legislators to join Michigan to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.