There are more uninsured residents of Texas -- 6.1 million and counting -- than there are people in 33 states. The state's elected officials might be expected, therefore, to cheer a federal health care law that is likely to deliver billions of dollars from Washington to Austin and cover millions of low-income Texans.

Instead, the Republican political leadership has greeted the law and its anticipated costs with open hostility, leaving policy makers to move forward with a complex set of changes even as the governor, attorney general and ranking legislators rage against it. The same awkward dichotomy exists in many of the 21 states that are challenging the health reform act's constitutionality, but are nonetheless required to follow it while their lawsuits meander through the courts.

Read the entire New York Times article here.