Arizona is far from alone in balking at the creation of a state-run health insurance exchange, though other GOP-led states are putting aside their opposition to the federal health care law and implementing one of its more controversial provisions.

By offering states the option to run a key piece of the federal health care overhaul, the law is forcing Arizona’s lawmakers into the ultimate conundrum: Do nothing and potentially lose significant control over the state’s health care system or help implement a program they’d rather see in the gutter.

Among the many government entities that are created by ObamaCare, one is especially troubling because it is comprised of a group of unelected government bureaucrats who will make critical changes in how the nation’s seniors receive health care.

Once employed for such mundane issues as inmate transfers, natural resource management and state boundary definitions, interstate compacts have suddenly become the latest tool for legislators looking to buck the federal government on a slew of controversial topics.

Attorneys for 20 states fighting the new federal health care law told a judge Thursday it will expand the government's powers in dangerous and unintended ways.