Today is a deadline that you probably didn't even know about. Every state has until today to decide if it is going to participate in a new government program launched under ObamaCare - the new high-risk pools for the uninsured.

So why wouldn't states want to participate? The Wall Street Journal explains ... 


The high-risk program is essentially insurance for individuals who have pre-existing conditions and are expensive to insure. The new health law allocates $5 billion for insuring them until 2014 when enrollees would be transferred to new health-insurance exchanges. But Richard Foster, chief actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, reported last week that the high-risk program will run out of money next year or in 2012. Therefore, if states sign up for the program, they'll end up shouldering the burden for about two years after it runs out of federal money.

Several states, including our own state of Georgia, have already said they will opt-out of the high-risk pools. Georgia Commissioner John Oxendine says these high-risk pools would "ultimately become the financial responsibility of Georgians in the form of an unfunded mandate."

So now, who is getting the blame? The Republicans. The White House is now saying that these high-risk pools were a Republican idea in the first place. While that may be true, the Democrats cut the funding from the requested $25 billion over 10 years to the current $5 billion over three-and-a-half years. Democrats also cut Republican language that would have given states a lot more leeway to set their own rules in regards to the pools.