Not to the extent that their needs to be. Right now there is no effective price communication going on which is a massive distortion of pricing throughout the system. Once Obamacare finishes off the traditional model, there will be enough price signaling to create an effective secondary market.

<The ACA is lacking in many ways, but it seems to have cured Tea Party governors of their fear of socialized medicine. Now, they're opting-in on letting the feds have their way with the state exchanges - and thereby greasing the skids towards the inevitable availability of AT LEAST a national public option for health insurance.

That's not the reason. The reason they're doing it so that don't have to pay for it.

You're right that Obama did us a favor with the ACA. But not without the help of a lot of Republicans (especially those shortsighted Republican Governors). The Democrats in congress were kind of involved in getting it passed as well. This wasn't a one-man show and I think it's unfair to give Obama all the credit.

"Shortsighted Republican Governors", LOL. You mean to say, "GOP Governors who don't want their states stuck with hundreds of millions of dollars in future budget gaps". That's not short-sighted. It's called common sense.