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I beg your pardon for my dramatic eye roll upon hearing the news that the Obama administration has given Tennessee, and TennCare Director Darin Gordon, an ultimatum: address the administration’s concerns over our state’s supposedly sluggish implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in ten days, or else. Cindy Mann, head of Medicaid, and the Obama White House are apparently disappointed in Tennessee’s progress of unrolling our portion of the largest socialist program overhaul to hit the United States in our lifetimes. Never mind that the integrity of the federal exchange system on healthcare.gov that launched in October 2013 continues to be compromised by improper enrollment processing, loss of critical data, and other vital information. I suppose we should also ignore the fact that delay at the state level was due in no small part to Obama’s inability to settle on a final policy and the many changes that continue to be made to the ACA in these previous months. Instead, the administration is conveniently disregarding their role in this boondoggle and essentially telling Tennessee officials that regardless of who made the mess, it is their job to mop it up and make sure that an inherently flawed program runs smoothly. This business of creating disasters at the federal level and blaming states once the failures are magnified at the local level has become a national epidemic with regional implications. We see it with the newly socialized healthcare system under Obamacare, the scandals within the Veterans Affairs administration, and magnified by the heartbreaking circumstances faced by several states at our nation’s Southern border. What if Tennessee (and other states) had told the feds they have ten days to fix healthcare.gov or else? Where was that ten-day standard when veterans were left to die or languish on waiting lists? What if our sister states down South told the Obama administration that they had ten days to solve the plight of the children isolated in deteriorating conditions at border patrol centers—or else? The consequences wrought by this administration for Tennesseans and Americans across the country are beyond infuriating. They are an embarrassment to our national character and plights now being thrust upon state and local governments. Isn’t it funny that those in Washington believe they are the solution to every problem, except the problems that they create? For the Obama administration to shake its finger in the faces of Tennessee officials over complications from their federally misguided healthcare program is, on the surface, a complete joke. And beneath the surface, not a laughing matter at all. -Lindsay Boyd  Enjoy the Beacon blog? Help us keep it going with a tax-deductible gift.