Little Rock   When a well-known pollster examines the trends and notes that the numbers supporting Obamacare are not only continuing to rise, but are doing so in such a significant way that Republicans are likely to re-message from repeal to reform of the Affordable Care Act, just as soon as they can harvest enough residue opposition as possible for the midterm elections, you know victory is at hand

The governor of Indiana is proposing to move into the expansion ranks with a proposal to extend Medicaid coverage to 350,000 adults there as well, though he wants a pound of flesh in saving face by way of payments from the working poor of up to $25 per month.  HHS says they look forward to the proposal, no doubt understanding that even with a couple of bucks from bleeding the turnip, the savings in life, limb, and hard cash will still be significant even with this poverty tax.   Other states are supposedly debating either the Indiana notion, once it hits the light of day, or the Arkansas private option which involves expansion of Medicaid but is handled by private insurance companies.

Visiting Dallas and Houston recently now that the largely duplicative additional certification for navigators has been completed and the official enrollment period is over, there’s quiet on this front for a change with more focus on Governor Perry’s own legal problems, the upcoming governor’s contest, and even the fact that in anything goes Houston, developers have been fined for harming the property values of neighbor residents from a 21-story apartment tower built next door.  Frankly, they may also be smarting in Texas from the fact that despite all of the hurdles put on the road to enrollment, even Texas exceeded the original Administrative goal for signups.  Ouch, that has to hurt!

A nice breeze is also blowing back in Congress where Republicans were red-faced recently when they invited all of the top health care insurers for what they expected to be an Obamacare hate festival, and found themselves having to manage a whole different meeting as one big insurer after another said how well it was going and how much better they expected that Obamacare and their businesses were going to be because of it.  All of those old lawyers in the House must have forgotten the advice about knowing what the witnesses are going to say before you call them to the bench.   Furthermore, some of the early reports from insurers indicate that any increases in rates for 2015 are going to be mild and in some cases are even going to be lower than the costs for 2014.

For all of the website problems the fact that some states, including Oregon and potentially Massachusetts, are talking about migrating to the federal website because of their own, very expensive problems must be very disconcerting to Obamacare haters as well.  Seems that states aren’t taking too seriously the last-ditch lawsuit about whether the federally administered marketplace would be prevented from offering subsidies.

Never makes sense to run a victory lap until the whole race is over.  George Bush taught us that, but advocates of more comprehensive healthcare can at least breathe more easily now that the wind is to their back, rather than pounding their faces.