Will Ohio reject half of health care reform? Or will voters reject all of it?

Well, that was a wild ride.  For politics junkies, yesterday was a huge fix -- the most anticipated, most important, most surprising Supreme Court decision since Bush vs. Gore, complete with a no-wait-yes reveal.

I was sitting in my doctor's office at 10:09 when CNN.com misfired and posted, "The Supreme Court has struck down the individual mandate for health care." I pulled it up on my phone. My doctor was mostly rooting for the health care law (he's from Canada), but even he got the breaking-news junkie gleam on his face when I told him.

I left and walked into the least boring waiting room experience ever, 20 Cleveland Clinic patients looking expectantly at a TV, reading the CNN captions.  Wait, CNN was saying by 10:16... some reporter was finally reading past page 2... not under the commerce clause, but under the power to tax... 

Thanks to Walter Dellinger, who should've earned thousands on InTrade for his prediction, I knew what that meant.

"Dewey Defeats Truman -- LIVE!" the Atlantic's Megan Garber called CNN's flub. 

The network flipped at 10:19. "Supreme Court upholds entirety of health care law," it announced.

That was pretty close.  But still not right.

The Court snipped one line out of the Affordable Care Act, but it's a big one.  It ruled the states can choose not to go along with the law's expansion of Medicaid. That could lead to a weird split in the country -- liberal states going along with all of health care reform, conservative states going along with half of it.

When I say half, I mean half.  You've heard that the new law will give 30 million people health insurance, right?  Well, today the New York Times ran a chart, based on Congressional Budget Office estimates, that says 22 million people will get health care coverage through new insurance exchanges, while 17 million will get it from the Medicaid expansion.  Now, that means 17 million would get it if their state goes along.

The Medicaid expansion will be 100 percent funded by the federal government -- for a few years.  Then 95 percent. Then 90 percent.  Even though it's a generous subsidy, conservative states that feel extra-cautious about their financial future (or, not as concerned about the uninsured as others) might decide to turn it down.  See this Washington Post story for more.

Gov. John Kasich and Lt. Gov Mary Taylor have strongly resisted the health care law. Yesterday they issued a statement saying they're "very concerned" about "a sudden, dramatic increase in Medicaid spending."

They're hinting that they might decide to turn down the federal money and not expand Medicaid to cover everyone in or near poverty in Ohio.  That could become a huge issue in state politics by next year.

But I'm a step ahead.  For now, the real question isn't, will Ohio's government say no to half of health care reform?  It's, will Ohio voters say no to all of it?

What I mean is, everyone says this election is about the economy and jobs.  But what if it's really about health care? 

The economy may decide the election, but the election will decide whether the health-care law stays or goes. Romney promises to repeal it.

Republicans in Congress think they only need 51 senators, not 60, to repeal parts of it. They need to pick up four Senate seats, and they have a shot.

Ohio's looking a lot like the ultimate swing state again.  It could clinch the presidency for Obama, or put Romney very close to winning.  So the future of the health care law may have passed from the Supreme Court's hands to Ohio voters'.

The Professor's "Sexiest Politician" contest returns

The Professor, the anonymous blogger at Political Science 216, has opened up the voting for his Sexiest Politician in Greater Cleveland contest. He encourages readers to "vote every single day between now and May 31!" State auditor Mary Taylor will defend her 2007 title against several challengers, including Judge Joan Synenberg, who seems to be an early favorite.

What about the guys? Looks like the Professor (or maybe his readers) lost interest in 2007 and never declared a male winner. This year's field of seven includes U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan -- who was one of Cleveland Magazine's Sexy Singles this year -- and Jeff Johnson, who's running to return to city council.

Just in case you'd like to judge their political talents as well as their photos, we've written about some of the candidates in the past. Here's my 2007 profile of Sherrod Brown, Colleen Mytnick's Joan Synenberg profile from 2006, our "singles profile" of Tim Ryan from this February, my coverage of Mary Taylor's audit smackdown of how Pat O'Malley ran his office, and a recent blog post of mine about Jeff Johnson, which leads to our 1999 profile of him and a 2007 update.

Who is The Professor, anyway? Here's my attempt to find out, from the fall.

O'Malley wasted $1m a year

Pat O'Malley infamously used the Cuyahoga County recorder's office as a patronage machine. Now the state auditor has figured out how much taxpayer money he wasted doing that: $1 million a year.

OK, the words "waste" and "patronage" do not appear in auditor Mary Taylor's press release today. But read her report along with the "Recorded Deeds" section of my October profile of O'Malley, or the Plain Dealer's April exposé of his employees' political connections, and that's the obvious conclusion.

The report says O'Malley personally chose who to hire, what job to give them, and what to pay them. That made his employees totally dependent on him and very likely loyal.

He hired too many people and paid them too much. He larded the staff with more than eight people who simply went to meetings to talk about what the recorder does -- serious overkill for an office that records deeds, but it surely helped his name recognition at election time. In all, $1 million of his $7 million annual budget was unnecessary spending.

Total control made it easy to reward political allies with jobs and get employees to campaign for him. It also made it easy to do what Cathy Luks, former North Royalton mayor and recent Republican candidate for recorder, says he did: Attempt to bribe her with one of those public outreach jobs if she quit running against him.

Taylor's press release and report put it more politely. Highlights:

-Cuyahoga County recorder's employees have a light workload. They process 2,522 documents per employee per year, compared to 3,912 and 4,688 in Franklin and Hamilton counties.

-They're overpaid. Top aides make 48 percent more than their peers in similar counties. The average employee makes more than $43,400, compared to $36,300 among their peers.

-The office should get rid of most or all of its 8.4 public outreach employees, who attend "community libraries, meetings and other events to increase awareness of services provided by the Recorder's Office." Other large Ohio counties have either 2 outreach employees or none. Cutting seven would save $365,000.

-The recorder should cut 17 other employees, saving $700,000.

-The office has no formal hiring process, evaulating process, or job descriptions. "The previous Recorder determined the need for a position, the person selected for the position, and the salary provided to that employee. ... [The office] determines initial salaries without regard to skills required and/or minimum qualifications at the time of hire."

The audit did praise the recorder's office for performing all its required duties and using new technology to make it easier for citizens to file deeds. The new recorder, Lillian Greene, says she's already started reducing the staff. She also claims the comparisons with other counties aren't fair because the others outsource some work.

My favorite tidbits from the Plain Dealer's story this morning:

-"O'Malley could not be reached Monday for comment." Yeah, because he's in federal prison, serving a 15-month sentence for downloading obscenity.

-Yet another argument for reforming county government: "Cuyahoga's elected officials, such as the recorder, have the authority to outspend their budgets and occasionally do so."