Now it is beginning to clear up.

Mitt Romney has been criticized for supporting the health care reform bill in Massachusetts that has been the prototype for the Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare. What might we learn from Romneycare as a predictor of what awaits us with Obamacare and perhaps gain a clue as to why Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback would return the $31.5 million grant to set up a health exchange plan in Kansas?

The Aug. 6 Wall Street Journal offers a view of what has happened in Massachusetts with Romneycare. Seventy-nine percent of the newly insured are on public programs, and health-related costs consumed 54 percent of the state budget in 2012, up from 24 percent in 2001. Over the same period, state spending in real terms jumped by 59 percent while education has fallen 15 percent, police and firemen by 11 percent and roads and bridges by 23 percent.

With K-12 funding now at 50 percent of the Kansas state budget and a state law that requires the budget to be balanced at year’s end, it is apparent that the Affordable Care Act will be anything but affordable. Brownback’s wait-and-see approach is more understandable.