Health law jobs, cost controls and the mandate play in minds of state leaders

Health law issues are reverberating in states around America as leaders consider what the law means for them -- especially if it stands after a Supreme Court review.

KQED's State of Health blog: New Health Care Jobs: How Healthy?
California stands to reap tens of thousands of jobs because of the federal health care overhaul -- according to a new report by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute (BACEI). Researchers compared the state's 2010 workforce to what it might have been if the Affordable Care Act had been fully implemented in that year. They concluded that once the ACA is fully in place in 2014 almost 99,000 new jobs will be created as a result of the law, most of them in Southern California. The Sacramento Valley will see the largest increase rate: a 1.3 percent boost in job opportunities. But ironically, health care jobs are not always healthy for the worker (Harris, 5/30).

Health News Florida: Health Law's Hidden Agenda Is Cost Control
Critics of the Affordable Care Act have focused on the "individual mandate" to buy health coverage. But industry leaders say the most far-reaching and incendiary part of the health law could be its shift in the way Americans pay for health care. Rewarding value -- good outcomes, cost-effective practices -- is likely to have the most potential long-term impact, say experts meeting in Orlando this week (Gentry, 5/30).

Denver Post: GOP Says Hick Opposes Health Mandates, But His Office Says Otherwise
Blasting Democrats as out of step with their own governor, the Colorado Republican Party on Wednesday said Gov. John Hickenlooper opposes the individual mandate, a key tenet of federal health care reform. The governor's office denies he said any such thing. The state GOP issued a press release Wednesday afternoon that said the Democratic governor "surprised Coloradans" by telling Ryan Warner, the host of Colorado Public Radio's "Colorado Matters," that Hickenlooper "opposes Obama's individual mandate" (Hoover, 5/31).