Dionne on "states' rights" . . . and subsidiarity?

MOJ-folks might find E.J. Dionne's recent op-ed, "States' Rights -- for the Right Ideas", of interest.  The piece is focused primarily on the recent health-care-related moves in Massachusetts.  He opens with this:

Liberals and Democrats in search of new ideas might surprise everyone by embracing the cause of states' rights.

No, that doesn't mean abandoning federal enforcement of civil rights, or environmental or worker safety statutes. That old states' rights idea should stay dead.

The new states' rights means enhancing the ability of states to solve problems that our current federal government won’t confront.  These days the real opponents of allowing our 50 laboratories of democracy to step up are conservatives who fear the power grass-roots progressives can wield at the state level. . . .

The federal government should solve problems or, failing that, give states the room, the incentives and the opportunities to solve problems for themselves.

Two quick thoughts:  First, it is not clear to me that Dionne is really endorsing "laboratories of democracy"-style federalism.  He is simply happy about the fact that one particular state has enacted a policy that he likes.  That is, when Dionne says that the "old states' rights idea" should "stay dead", he is not talking about an "idea" of "states' rights" at all, but just about policy outcomes.  Second, I agree that "[t]he federal government should solve problems" -- at least, it should solve those problems that it is (a) authorized and (b) competent to solve.  I wonder, though - - has Dionne -- with the words "failing that" -- inverted subsidiarity?