>Within that $27 is the lie and hence the point. The true costs are not $27. The actual cost of the program was significantly larger and the State had to cover those costs through taxation, borrowing or budgetary shenanigans. In the end the lawmakers realized that the problem would compound significantly and chose to scrap the program before it got out of hand.
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>The problem was that for every needy family that enrolled, nine affluent families who used to have insurance also enrolled. IOW numbers were almost ten times the number for which they had budgeted. It's a planning failure that needs no further dark motivations or chicanery attached to it.

Another way to look at it is that they wrote the bill and lowballed the number of enrollees in order to claim a less dramatic basis so the program wouldn't seem nearly as costly as reality dictated. It's not like we haven't seen this before. In health care alone we have Medicare, SCHIP, Massachusetts, Hawaii, and so on as relevant examples of understating potential costs to justify passage.

>I have a question for you: why aren't the people in Hawaii up in arms about this planning failure that screwed them around so much? Maybe they know something you don't.

They were given something for "free" and had it taken away from them. How do you expect them to react?

>Finally, since you are an affected taxpayer do you think that the State of California should pick up the US$1.4M tab for police, traffic control and other services related to Michael Jackson's memorial service even though it's not in their budget?

Absolutely not! The estate should be billed for services rendered.