Exploiting the "Crazy Quilt"

Friday Chinchilla Blogging & Shuffle!

Foo Fighters / One By One / Overdrive
Credence Clearwater Revival / Chronicle, Volume 1 / Proud Mary
Sneaker Pimps / Becoming X / Tesko Suicide
Pearl Jam / Ten / Oceans
Harvey Danger / Little by Little / War Buddies
Nappy Roots / Watermelon, Chicken & Gritz / Hustla
Immortal Technique / Revolutionary Volume 2 / The Message & The Money
Reflection Eternal / Train of Thought / Down for the Count
Pretty Girls Make Graves / All Medicated Geniuses / All Medicated Geniuses
The Diplomats / Diplomatic Immunity / The Dipset Anthem

One way to force national action on health care is to make the problem so complicated that large business simply decide to give up. Imagine if Maryland passes its employer mandate, Montana passes a different employer mandate, San Francisco passes a law exempting small businesses, the state of California passes a similar law but with a different definition of "small", Massachusetts has a state run plan, Oregon does things its own way, West Virgina has its own solution, and so on and so forth. Soon enough, the HR departments at Wal-Mart, Qwest, Limited, and other nationwide companies, not to mention the insurance business, are tearing their hair out trying to manage their tax and spending requirements in umpteen different states and municipalities, so they call for a unified national solution. Kate alludes to this possibility over at Healthy Policy.

Paul Roberts suggested a similar strategy in The End of Oil, where a patchwork of state regulations on carbon emissions eventually leads energy and car companies towards a stricter set of national emissions standards. How exactly such scenarios would play out given the current configuration of Washington, though, is unclear.