To change all of this we must change the tax treatment of health insurance – something Paul Ryan knows very well. That will never happen, however, if we block grant the ObamaCare money to the states.

Only a few weeks ago Ryan and his colleagues Fred Upton and John Kline were promising fundamental reform, including a flat tax credit for health insurance, much like the child tax credit. Republicans seemed to be coming together on a set of reforms that would empower individuals and rely on free markets. There was even a hint that the Republican tax credit would not only replace the complicated subsidies in the ObamaCare exchanges, it might also replace the arbitrary, unfair way we currently subsidize health insurance for 149 million Americans who currently get their insurance at work.

What we are now getting is not reform. It’s not governance. It’s abdication.