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Colorado Republicans for Obamacare?
By: John R. Graham
4.14.2011
Colorado’s Health Benefits Exchange legislation, which would implement Obamacare in the state, was “mortally wounded,” but is being brought back to life by none other than the Republican majority leader in the state house of representatives, Amy Stephens, according to the Denver Post’s Tim Hoover.
Exchanges are the vehicles through which the gusher of cash from Obamacare’s tax hikes will be laundered into subsidies to favored health plans, payments to vendors and consultants, and salaried jobs for political appointees.
To be sure, this is not what the conservative Stephens thought she was doing. The bill was rolling happily along a couple of weeks ago, when the state’s liberty groups caught wind of it and convinced Stephens to “test” whether or not this was actually an Obamacare-enabling exchange, by offering an amendment that the exchange could only start up if the state got a waiver from Obamacare. Needless to say, the legislation failed the test, and the bill’s supporters pulled it in order to get to work on Stephens.
Its supporters included a powerful group of business interests such as the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business. Sure, the NFIB is party to the Florida-led lawsuit to overturn Obamacare, but they’re not going to let that prevent them from straddling both sides of the fence.
These business groups probably think that the state’s current political make-up — Democratic governor and Senate majority, and a one-seat Republican majority in the House of Representatives — represents the GOP’s high-water mark for the next few political cycles. They (and Stephens) believe they can blunt the worst effects of the Obamacare exchange if Republicans have some input into the bill.
This is wishful thinking. Read the entire article here.
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