The Washington Post had a story today entitled, "Health Care Reform to Shift Focus." The main point of the story is that with the death of the California health care plan, advocates for health care "reform" will shift their focus to trying to change health care at the national level.The article quotes Paul Ginsburg of the Center for Health System Change:

"The failure of California's plan pushes the focus about expanding coverage even more strongly towards Washington. I've never believed that states would be able to go very far on their own because of their fiscal limitations. A state in an average year could be able to afford something, but once they get into a recession, they get into fiscal trouble."

It does seem likely that as states have less tax revenue because of an economic slowdown they will be less likely to pursue grandiose schemes. As the Massachusetts situation revealed, big "reform" plans are expensive -- often more expensive than anticipated. Perhaps the current economic climate will slow the call for new government programs, but when the economy recovers I'm sure we'll see a slew of new ideas on how to "fix" health care at the state level.