The long stall. (See 1a below.)
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Iran decides it is time to respond to what they consider American naval intimidation (See 2 below.)
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My candidate for Congress responds to Obama's crushing Obamacare intrusions:
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President Obamahas three significant Middle East diplomatic initiatives underway, treating, respectively, Iran's nuclear weapons program; Syria's deadly, exhausting conflict; and the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Into these negotiations, Obama and his administration have poured enormous amounts of American prestige, time and effort.
Although rarely considered collectively, these three efforts constitute a significant strategic package for a White House that all too often hardly bothers with foreign policy. These initiatives truly reflect Obama's view of America's international role: His is a world of rhetoric and talk, not power.
Thus, Iran has not feared U.S. military strikes against its nuclear weapons program, and now, as a result of November's interim agreement in Geneva, it does not even fear international economic sanctions. Neither the Bashar Assadregime nor Al Qaeda terrorists in Syria see any prospect of material U.S. intervention. And the main pressure being applied in the Israeli-Palestinian matter is against Israel, heretofore Washington's strongest regional ally.
As described below, all three of Obama's diplomatic maneuvers are based on errors and will almost certainly fail. And what will happen then? Failing on one is bad enough, but failing on all three will be devastating.
And it is no answer to say that deals may yet be signed. Covering failure with a piece of paper changes nothing. The Iran interim agreement, for example, is not a partial success simply because its later collapse will be due merely to poor implementation. Without a real meeting of minds, there is no true deal, as Iran's all-too-evident disdain already amply demonstrates.
The coming crash of U.S. diplomacy is not idle speculation about a remote future. Our declining prestige is already apparent globally; when all three Middle East negotiations fail conclusively, America's influence will fall further. Friends and adversaries alike are recalibrating their policies accordingly, particularly because the underlying causes of the three impending failures will spell trouble and misfortune elsewhere.
Obama's ongoing failures could have been avoided. A less ideological, more realistic and clear-eyed leader would comprehend American power and interests, knowing how to use the former to protect the latter, rather than making Obama's basic mistakes.
Obama's first error: misreading your adversary. There was never any chance Iran could be negotiated out of a nuclear weapons capability it has pursued for nearly 30 years. Efforts during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations demonstrated how Iran deftly uses negotiations to gain political legitimacy, buy time to continue work on its nuclear program and evade international punishment. Hassan Rouhani followed precisely this playbook as Iran's chief nuclear negotiator 10 years ago. He is doing so again today as Iran's president.
The second error: not knowing who your adversaries are. Obama argued for three years that Russia shared his objective of a peaceful transition from the Assad regime in Syria to something else. This was never true. Moscow's support for Assad (as well as Iran's, directly and through Hezbollah) guaranteed he would only depart feet first. The U.S. could either have aided Syria's opposition or tackled the problem's root cause: the mullahs' regime in Tehran. Obama chose to do neither. His equivocation regarding Syria's chemical weapons program has provoked giggles or dismay at White House weakness.
The third error: not knowing who your friends are. The Palestinians lack legitimate governing institutions capable of hard decisions, including making perilous concessions and compromises, and overcoming resistance by Hamasand other terrorists. Without such institutions, no long-term solution is possible. Negotiating with the Palestinian Authority has less substance than negotiating with a hologram. Perversely, however, Obama treats Israel as the problem.
Not apprehending these realities or foreseeing their consequences debilitates the United States, discourages its allies and emboldens its adversaries. The coming collapse of all three of Obama's negotiations will convince foreign governments that his policies are dooming Washington's Middle East influence to precipitous decline. And since appearance is reality in international politics, America's ability to influence events — in Egypt for example, where the military government is already reverting to pre-Sadat days, purchasing arms from Russia — will sink further. Moreover, the opportunity costs of not focusing on threats elsewhere, such as China's belligerent territorial claims in its coastal waters, are enormous.
Iran will emerge more powerful, verging on deliverable nuclear weapons, while still financing and arming terrorists worldwide. Assad seems likely to survive, which is bad enough by itself, but it will be compounded by the affirmation it affords Iranian and Russian strength. Israel will trust Washington even less than now, and ironically, Palestinians will be even more anti-American because Obama will not be able to deliver to them the Israeli concessions he predicted.
Perhaps this prospect of massive strategic failure will awaken Obama and America as a whole, but that seems unlikely. Instead, the increasing danger is that only another 9/11, another disaster, will produce the necessary awakening. There is tragedy ahead for our country if we continue on this course.
John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., is a senior fellow at theAmerican Enterprise Institute and the author of “Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad.”
Commentary Magazine, Jonathan S. Tobin
Today ought to be a day to celebrate for the Obama administration. Nuclear talks with Iran set to begin in Vienna will begin the next stage of a diplomatic process by which the president will redeem his oft-repeated promise about stopping the Islamist regime’s drive for nuclear weapons. For months since the signing of the interim nuclear agreement with Iran in November, the president and his cheering section in the press have lauded the prospects of these negotiations as the only thing standing in the way of a rush to war. They have spoken about the willingness of the Iranians to listen to reason since the election of the “moderate” Hassan Rouhani as president last summer.
They have also cited the seriousness of the president’s resolve to get results even as he has tempered some of the optimism by saying the chances of success are only 50 percent. Most importantly, while shooting down the chances of passing a new Iran sanctions bill that would have gone into effect only if the next round of talks had concluded in failure, they claimed the administration would not allow itself to be stalled by the Iranians and that the president would hold Tehran accountable to a tough timetable that would preclude any delaying tactics.
But the atmosphere pervading the opening of the new talks provides a stark contrast to what we’ve been hearing from Washington lately. It’s not just that the Iranians are pouring cold water on any optimism about the negotiations, with their Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saying they “will lead nowhere” in a speech yesterday or his representatives’ adamant refusal to even discuss the dismantling of any of their nuclear infrastructure. What is most distressing about the Iran talks is the blithe assumption on the part of the negotiators that they will drag on for as long as a year. That gives the lie to the president’s assurances that he wouldn’t let himself be suckered by the Iranians into allowing them to keep delaying while they continue to get closer to their nuclear goal. It also puts the administration’s adamant opposition to the proposed sanctions bill into a new and unflattering light. The reason to oppose the sanctions seems now to be not so much about protecting the diplomatic option as it does enabling the Iranians to stall the West for as long as they like.
It should be remembered that the deal Secretary of State John Kerry signed in Geneva on November 24 stipulated that the talks that would follow were to take place over a six-month period. While there was a clause that said the talks could be extended if necessary, Kerry and his boss President Obama stressed the six-month time frame in order to assure Americans and nervous Israelis the agreement couldn’t be used by Tehran to stall the West indefinitely. Yet even before the new talks began, we are now being assured by the administration’s faithful enablers at the New York Times that we should expect the negotiations to drag on until 2015 with little hope that they will end even then. With Iran’s economy showing signs of a revival in the wake of the West’s loosening of sanctions, there appears to be no reason to expect Tehran will ever give up its nuclear dream.
Thus, with this week’s first meeting to be only about the form of the talks that will follow, it’s now clear that what is happening is exactly what critics of the president’s attempt to engage with Iran always feared: a renewal of the same stalling tactics that has allowed Tehran to drag out this process over the last decade.
President Obama denounced the new sanctions bill that had the support of a bipartisan 59-member Senate coalition as both superfluous and dangerous since it could scare the Iranians away from the table. But what we now see is that the proposal’s worst feature in the eyes of the administration was that it took the Iran nuclear deal’s timetable seriously. If the new sanctions bill were signed into law it would strengthen President Obama’s hand in negotiations with the Iranians since it would convey the message that there would be serious consequences if they did not comply with Western demands to give up their nuclear ambition. But without the sanctions bill, the Iranians—and the administration—are free to draw out the talks as long as they like. The lack of a new sanctions option also allows both sides to ignore key questions about Iran’s ballistic missile technology and other pertinent questions about their behavior, such as support for terrorism.
Open-ended negotiations were exactly what the president promised he would not be drawn into, but that appears to be the situation that the United States finds itself in as the diplomats arrive in Vienna. For a decade, Iran has been able to engage in diplomatic tricks that have enabled it to stall the West indefinitely as they tried to run out the clock until their nuclear project was completed. The sanctions that were passed over Obama’s objections during his first term were supposed to bring them to the table and end this charade. But the glum outlook in Vienna makes it appear as if the West has thrown away that economic leverage.
Right now, faith in diplomacy with Iran seems to have more to do with a disinclination to pressure them than it does with any belief that the U.S. can achieve its objectives. While it may take a year or more for the administration to concede that the talks have failed, the only measure that might actually help them to succeed—the prospect of new sanctions that will shut down Iran’s oil sales—is now off the table. This is good news for the Iranians but very bad news for those in the West who hoped Obama meant what he said about averting the nuclear threat.
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The commander of Iran's Northern Navy Fleet, Admiral Afshin Rezayee Haddad, said Saturday that several warships have begun their journey to the Atlantic Ocean near US maritime waters for the first time. They carry a message, he said: Tehran is responding to US naval deployments near its own coastlines. He was referring to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet based in Bahrain. The Iranian fleet consists of the destroyer Sabalan and logistic helicopter carrier Khark, which will be on a three-month mission near the US coastline.
The announcement coincided with the tough demands raised by a team of UN watchdog monitors visiting Tehran to open up Iranian’s military-related nuclear facilities, such as the Parchin base.
The Iranians are certain the US will not strike back at their naval deployment for fear of disrupting the ongoing nuclear diplomatic track.
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3) THE MANY CLINTON BODY BAGS .
I had forgotten how long it is.
This is a quick refresher course, lest we forget what has
happened to many "friends" and associates of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
an apparent heart attack, while in solitary confinement.
Starbucks Coffee Shop in Georgetown (Washington, D. C.).
harassment by Clinton in the White House.
Clinton at Little Rock's Rose Law Firm.
to turn over to congress.)
Was reported to have been having an affair with Hillary.
4 - Ron Brown - Secretary of Commerce and former DNC Chairman.
Reported to have died by impact in a plane crash.
A pathologist close to the investigation reported that there was a hole in
the top of Brown's skull resembling a gunshot wound.
At the time of his death Brown was being investigated, and spoke publicly of
his willingness to cut a deal with prosecutors.
The rest of the people on the plane also died.
A few days later the Air Traffic controller committed suicide.
5 - C. Victor Raiser, II - Raiser, a major player in the Clinton fund
raising organization died in a private plane crash in July 1992.
6 - Paul Tulley - Democratic National Committee Political Director found
dead in a hotel room in Little Rock on September 1992.
Described by Clinton as a "dear friend and trusted advisor".
7 - Ed Willey - Clinton fundraiser, found dead November 1993 deep in the
woods in VA of a gunshot wound to the head. Ruled a suicide.
Ed Willey died on the same day His wife Kathleen Willey claimed Bill Clinton
groped her in the oval office in the White House.
Ed Willey was involved in several Clinton fund raising events.
8 - Jerry Parks - Head of Clinton's gubernatorial security team in Little
Rock ..
Gunned down in his car at a deserted intersection outside Little Rock.
Park's son said his father was building a dossier on Clinton.
He allegedly threatened to reveal this information.
After he died the files were mysteriously removed from his house.
9 - James Bunch - Died from a gunshot suicide.
It was reported that he had a "Black Book" of people which contained names
of influential people who visited Prostitutes in Texas and Arkansas
10 - James Wilson - Was found dead in May 1993 from an apparent hanging
suicide.
He was reported to have ties to the Clintons' Whitewater deals.
11 - Kathy Ferguson - Ex-wife of Arkansas Trooper Danny Ferguson, was found
dead in May 1994, in her living room .. a gunshot to her head.
the top of Brown's skull resembling a gunshot wound.
his willingness to cut a deal with prosecutors.
raising organization died in a private plane crash in July 1992.
dead in a hotel room in Little Rock on September 1992.
woods in VA of a gunshot wound to the head. Ruled a suicide.
groped her in the oval office in the White House.
Rock ..
of influential people who visited Prostitutes in Texas and Arkansas
suicide.
dead in May 1994, in her living room .. a gunshot to her head.
It was ruled a suicide even though there were several packed suitcases, as
if she were going somewhere.
Danny Ferguson was a co-defendant along with Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones
Lawsuit . and Kathy Ferguson was a possible corroborating witness for Paula Jones.
12 - Bill Shelton - Arkansas State Trooper and fiance of Kathy Ferguson.
Critical of the suicide ruling of his fiance, he was found dead in June,
1994 of a gunshot wound also ruled a suicide at the grave site of his
fiance.
13 - Gandy Baugh - Attorney for Clinton's friend Dan Lassater, died by
jumping out a window of a tall building January, 1994.
His client, Dan Lassater, was a convicted drug distributor.
14 - Florence Martin - Accountant & sub-contractor for the CIA, was related
to the Barry Seal, Mean, Arkansas Airport drug smuggling case.
He died of three gunshot Wounds.
15 - Suzanne Coleman - Reportedly had an affair with Clinton when he was
Arkansas Attorney General.
Died Of a gunshot wound to the back of the head, ruled a Suicide.
Was pregnant at the time of her death.
16 - Paula Grober - Clinton's speech interpreter for the deaf from 1978
until her death December 9,1992.
She died in a one car accident.
17 - Danny Casolaro - Investigative reporter Investigating the Mean Airport
and Arkansas Development Finance authority.
He slit his wrists, apparently, in the middle of his investigation.
18 - Paul Wilcher - Attorney investigating corruption at Mean Airport with
Casolaro and the 1980 "October Surprise" was found dead on a toilet June 22, 1993, in his Washington DC apartment.
if she were going somewhere.
Lawsuit . and Kathy Ferguson was a possible corroborating witness for Paula Jones.
1994 of a gunshot wound also ruled a suicide at the grave site of his
fiance.
jumping out a window of a tall building January, 1994.
to the Barry Seal, Mean, Arkansas Airport drug smuggling case.
He died of three gunshot Wounds.
Arkansas Attorney General.
until her death December 9,1992.
and Arkansas Development Finance authority.
Casolaro and the 1980 "October Surprise" was found dead on a toilet June 22, 1993, in his Washington DC apartment.
died of poison)
15,1993.
Brown and John Huang.
Commerce.
special security clearance died shortly thereafter in a small plane crash.
Advisory Committee died with his attorney Steve Dickson in a small plane crash.
treated Clinton's mother, stepfather and Brother.
accident.
in the trunk of a car left at his repair shop.
when his plane exploded.
Reports say the two boys may have stumbled upon the Mean Arkansas airport
drug operation.
railroad tracks and being run over.
Later autopsy reports stated that the 2 boys had been slain before being
placed on the tracks.
Many linked to the case died before their testimony could come before a
Grand Jury.
THE FOLLOWING PERSONS HAD INFORMATION ON THE IVES/HENRY CASE:
28 - Keith Coney - Died when his motorcycle slammed into the back of a
truck, 7/88.
29 - Keith McMaskle - Died, stabbed 113 times, Nov 1988
30 - Gregory Collins - Died from a gunshot wound January 1989.
31 - Jeff Rhodes - He was shot, mutilated and found burned in a trash dump
in April 1989.
(Coroner ruled death due to suicide)
32 - James Milan - Found decapitated.
However, the Coroner ruled his death was due to natural causes"?
33 - Jordan Kettleson - Was found shot to death in the front seat of his
pickup truck in June 1990.
34 - Richard Winters - A suspect in the Ives/Henry deaths.
He was killed in a set-up robbery July 1989.
THE FOLLOWING CLINTON PERSONAL BODYGUARDS ALL DIED OF MYSTERIOUS CAUSES OR SUICIDE
36 - Major William S. Barkley, Jr.
37 - Captain Scott J . Reynolds
38 - Sgt. Brian Hanley
39 - Sgt. Tim Sabel
40 - Major General William Robertson
41 - Col. William Densberger
42 - Col. Robert Kelly
43 - Spec. Gary Rhodes
44 - Steve Willis
45 - Robert Williams
46 - Conway LeBleu
47 - Todd McKeehan
placed on the tracks.
Grand Jury.
truck, 7/88.
in April 1989.
pickup truck in June 1990.
And this list does not include the four dead Americans in Benghazi that
Hillary abandoned!
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4)
Stephen Blackwood: ObamaCare and My Mother's Cancer Medicine
The news was dumbfounding. She used to have a policy that covered the drug that kept her alive. Now she's on her own.
By
STEPHEN BLACKWOOD
When my mother was diagnosed with carcinoid cancer in 2005, when she was 49, it came as a lightning shock. Her mother, at 76, had yet to go gray, and her mother's mother, at 95, was still playing bingo in her nursing home. My mother had always been, despite her diminutive frame, a titanic and irrepressible force of vitality and love. She had given birth to me and my nine younger siblings, and juggled kids, home and my father's medical practice with humor and grace for three decades. She swam three times a week in the early mornings, ate healthily and never smoked.
And now, cancer? Anyone who's been there knows that a cancer diagnosis is terrifying. A lot goes through your mind and heart: the deep pang of possible loss (what would my father and all of us do without her?), and the anguish and anger at what feels like injustice (after decades of mothering and managing dad's practice, she was just then going back to school).
We, as a family, were scared and angry, but from the beginning we knew we would do all we could to fight this disease. We became involved with fundraising for research, through the Caring for Carcinoid Foundation in Boston; we blogged; we did triathlons (my mother's idea) and cherished our time together as never before.
Carcinoid, a form of neuroendocrine cancer, is a terminal disease but generally responds well to treatment by Sandostatin, a drug that slows tumor growth and reduces (but does not eliminate) the symptoms of fatigue, nausea and gastrointestinal dysfunction. My mother received a painful shot twice a month and often couldn't sit comfortably for days afterward.
Getty Images
As with most cancers, one thing led to another. There have been several more surgeries, metastases, bone deterioration, a terrible bout of thyroiditis (an inflammation of the thyroid gland), and much more. But my mother has kept fighting, determined to make the most of life, no matter what it brings. She has an indomitable will and is by far the toughest person I've ever met. But she wouldn't still be here without that semimonthly Sandostatin shot that slows the onslaught of her disease.
And then in November, along with millions of other Americans, she lost her health insurance. She'd had a Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan for nearly 20 years. It was expensive, but given that it covered her very expensive treatment, it was a terrific plan. It gave her access to any specialist or surgeon, and to the Sandostatin and other medications that were keeping her alive.
And then, because our lawmakers and president thought they could do better, she had nothing. Her old plan, now considered illegal under the new health law, had been canceled.
Because the exchange website in her state (Virginia) was not working, she went directly to insurers' websites and telephoned them, one by one, over dozens of hours. As a medical-office manager, she had decades of experience navigating the enormous problems of even our pre-ObamaCare system. But nothing could have prepared her for the bureaucratic morass she now had to traverse.
The repeated and prolonged phone waits were Sisyphean, the competence and customer service abysmal. When finally she found a plan that looked like it would cover her Sandostatin and other cancer treatments, she called the insurer, Humana, HUM +9.10%to confirm that it would do so. The enrollment agent said that after she met her deductible, all treatments and medications—including those for her cancer—would be covered at 100%. Because, however, the enrollment agents did not—unbelievable though this may seem—have access to the "coverage formularies" for the plans they were selling, they said the only way to find out in detail what was in the plan was to buy the plan. (Does that remind you of anyone?)
With no other options, she bought the plan and was approved on Nov. 22. Because by January the plan was still not showing up on her online Humana account, however, she repeatedly called to confirm that it was active. The agents told her not to worry, she was definitely covered.
Then on Feb. 12, just before going into (yet another) surgery, she was informed by Humana that it would not, in fact, cover her Sandostatin, or other cancer-related medications. The cost of the Sandostatin alone, since Jan. 1, was $14,000, and the company was refusing to pay.
The news was dumbfounding. This is a woman who had an affordable health plan that covered her condition. Our lawmakers weren't happy with that because . . . they wanted plans that were affordable and covered her condition. So they gave her a new one. It doesn't cover her condition and it's completely unaffordable.
Though I'm no expert on ObamaCare (at 10,000 pages, who could be?), I understand that the intention—or at least the rhetorical justification—of this legislation was to provide coverage for those who didn't have it. But there is something deeply and incontestably perverse about a law that so distorts and undermines the free activity of individuals that they can no longer buy and sell the goods and services that keep them alive. ObamaCare made my mother's old plan illegal, and it forced her to buy a new plan that would accelerate her disease and death. She awaits an appeal with her insurer.
Will this injustice be remedied, for her and for millions of others? Or is my mother to die because she can no longer afford the treatment that keeps her alive?
Like every American, I want affordable health care, and I'm open to innovative solutions of all kinds—individual, corporate, for-profit, nonprofit and public. It will take all of these, and all the intelligence, creativity and self-discipline we have, as well as everything we can offer one another as families, neighbors, friends and citizens—and it still won't be perfect. But it is precisely because health care for 300 million people is so complicated that it cannot be centrally managed.
The "Affordable" Care Act is a brutal, Procrustean disaster. In principle, it violates the irreducible particularity of human life, and in practice it will cause many individuals to suffer and die. We can do better, and we must.
Mr. Blackwood is the president of Ralston College, a planned liberal-arts institution in Savannah, Ga., and is on the board of the Caring for Carcinoid Foundation. His mother, Catherine, manages the Family Medicine Center in Virginia Beach, Va.
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5) Report: Congress may condition Palestinian Authority aid on curbing incitement
Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz reportedly met with members of Congress to express his appreciation for the initiative.
"Maybe now, when there is international recognition and a monetary threat on the aid, the incitement will lessen," Steinitz said.
Channel 2 reported that Israel recently turned down the offer to establish a joint action committee with the U.S. to deal with PA incitement against Israel, due to concerns that it would be ineffective.
Israel reportedly put forward two conditions for its participation in such a committee: limiting debate periods to ensure implementation of decisions, and a focus on incitement within the official Palestinian media.
Itamar Marcus, director of Palestinian Media Watch, told JNS.org, "How can the U.S. justify funding a PA regime that glorifies murderers-using American money? How can the U.S. justify giving money to a regime that demonizes Jews as descendants of monkeys and pigs? Conditioning funding on the end of hatred is the ethical thing to do. And hopefully the PA will get the message that they have to choose between being a terror-promoting entity ostracized by the U.S. and the Western countries, like Hamas, or a sincere peace partner."
America's current funding of the PA "has enabled them to continue promoting hate and terror and still be seen as a peace partner, even though the two are inherently contradictory," added Marcus.
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6) Governors: Obamacare Here to Stay
By Greg Richter
No matter where they stand on Obamacare, America's governors agree on one thing about President Barack Obama's controversial healthcare overhaul: It's not going away.
"We're just trying to make the best of a bad situation," said Republican Gov. Terry Branstad, of Iowa at a meeting of the nation's governors in Washington, D.C., this weekend.
"We're trying to make it work as best we can for the people of Iowa," said Barnstad, who calls the healthcare law "unaffordable and unsustainable," yet something he has to implement by law.
Governors from both parties report that a full repeal of the law would be complicated at best, if not impossible, as states move forward with implementation and begin covering millions of people — both by expanding Medicaid rolls for lower-income resident or through state or federal exchanges that offer federal subsidies to those who qualify.
Republican opposition to the law is the centerpiece of the GOP's political strategy ahead of this year's midterm elections. Some Democrats who supported Obamacare are now finding themselves in tight re-election races, among them Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas.
Democrats bragged at one point they would run "on Obamacare," but as time passed those words stopped being repeated, and now even liberal commentators admit they're more likely to be running "from" it as candidates shy away from having the president show up at their campaign events.
Republicans plan to focus on the troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov and its breaches of personal information along with Obama's broken promise that people who like their health plans and doctors could keep them.
They also are likely to play up the increase in rates and dropped coverage expected just ahead of the November vote and Obama's unilateral delays of key parts of the law for what they say are political purposes. Republicans also argue the delays, without Congressional input, are against the law.
The conservative group, Americans For Prosperity, has spent more than $20 million on anti-Obamacare television ads in several key states since last August.
Democrats, meanwhile, are likely to focus on the nearly 3.3 million people who have signed up through Feb. 1 for healthcare coverage under the law. The White House reported that 1 million people signed up nationwide for private insurance under the law in January alone. It remains unclear that the administration will reach its unofficial goal of 7 million people by the end of March, but it still expects several million enrollees by then.
A recent Associated Press analysis of the sign-ups found that six Republican-led states — Florida, Idaho, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin — were on pace or better than the states had initially projected.
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder is among several Republican governors who expanded their state's Medicaid laws under the law.
"The whole dialogue on the Affordable Care Act is about people fighting, causing gridlock and a mess, instead of working on something important like wellness," Snyder said, adding that he still has "a lot of issues" with the overhaul. "But it is the law, so I'm trying to work in that context."
Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, who leads the Democratic Governors Association, said governors spent about half of their private lunch session on Saturday discussing the healthcare law and the tone was much different than in past years.
"Before the election, it felt like a cockfight," Shumlin said, describing the debate over the law during the 2012 campaign. "Down there we were talking about ways to we could cooperate."
"There's no doubt in my mind that the Republicans have accepted that as millions of people sign up for it and finally get the healthcare they have been dreaming of for their families, nobody's going to take that away," he said.
Yet Republican governors here described circumstances that would hardly befit a dream.
Democrats and Republicans alike complained about major problems with the Medicaid eligibility data that they are receiving from federal exchanges. The 36 states in the federal exchange have noted often incomplete data with the Medicaid information they are receiving.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican who is among his party's most vulnerable incumbents in the fall election, said he's working to expand his state's Medicaid program, but the process had been cumbersome and difficult. He said it still remained unclear, from a fiscal standpoint, if the healthcare law would be functioning in two years.
"There are a lot more unknowns than there are knowns," Corbett said.
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, a Republican, said many governors still have concerns about the program, but that outright repeal would be "complicated."
Republican campaign officials, meanwhile, plan to make the healthcare law the overwhelming focus of the coming midterm elections.
The stakes are high for parties battling over control of the House and Senate, while there are also 36 elections for governor, most of them for governors mansions currently held by Republicans. The coming elections also offer prospective 2016 presidential candidates an opportunity to boost their political standing.
Leading GOP figures in the Senate like Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida have been vocal critics of the healthcare law. Cruz mounted a 21-hour Senate speech against Obama's health law and was tied to the partial government shutdown while Rubio was an early proponent of defunding the health law although he distanced himself from the shutdown.
New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan, a first-term Democrat up for re-election in November, said her state would soon expand its Medicaid program to cover 50,000 uninsured residents.
"Overall, I'm very disappointed with the early implementation and rollout," she said. "But I think we are making progress."
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