…has begun to eat its own:
The biggest federally funded program (Medicaid) is competing directly with the next-biggest set of programs (education). State politicians are now squeezed between the two most voracious (and unionized) constituencies in American politics: the education blob, and the health care/AARP/provider complex. They will want a way out; otherwise, they’re toast. And the only way out is interposition to Obamacare.
When something can’t go on, at some point, it doesn’t.
Nonpositive sum games are a classic result of redistribution schemes. It’ll become desperate people fighting over a shrinking pie unless we change things.