Richard Epstein and Mario Loyola look at the next challenge to ObamaCare:  The forced expansion of state Medicaid programs.

The article is interesting and well-written on the point but also serves as a reminder of the problems that flow from bending the Constitution for "good causes":

"Unfortunately, the Supreme Court's decision in South Dakota v. Dole (1987) confused matters. Dole let Congress condition 5% of federal highway funds on the states raising their drinking age to 21. The Court argued that this modest penalty was mere persuasion—not coercion—but cautioned that "in some circumstances, the financial inducement offered by Congress might be so coercive as to pass the point at which 'pressure turns into compulsion.'"

The question, then, is where that point is. Judge Vinson denied that any such point exists because the federal courts have routinely ignored the Court's warning in Dole by approving virtually every conditional federal grant program—no matter how intrusive.

The reason why the analysis in Dole has failed to offer any protection for state autonomy is that it is fundamentally wrong to think of coercion as a matter of degree. The government always engages in coercion when it taxes away money from the citizens of several states, only to return it to those states that abide by certain conditions.

The Medicaid provision of ObamaCare spells the death knell to competition among the states. States cannot function as 'laboratories of democracy'—as the 10th Amendment intended—if the federal government can use its power to tax and spend to bludgeon all states into conformity."

Read on.

Note: Several people have commented they can't read The Wall Street Journal articles because the site is by subscription.  My instant reaction is that some things are worth paying for and The Wall Street Journal is absolutely one of those things.