March 18, 2013 11:57 AM UTC

Where are Coffman, Suthers, and other Obamacare opponents now?

• 3 Comments
• by: Jason Salzman

The Denver Post's Daily Dose and Colorado Public Radio's "Check and Balance" blogs reported Friday that no one testified against Colorado's proposed expansion of Medicaid, a key step in the implementation of Obamacare that would provide 100,000 to 150,000 uninsured people in Colorado with health insurance. 

CPR Health Reporter Erick Whitney reported on the hearing:

[Republicans] fought Medicaid expansion as part of the Affordable Care Act in Congress in 2009. When it passed, the state’s Republican Attorney General joined the lawsuit against it at the U-S Supreme Court. When the court upheld the law, but made it’s mandate to expand Medicaid optional for states, Republicans tried to win enough votes in the statehouse to say no to President Obama’s plan.

And that led to this small but significant moment yesterday, when Linda Newell, vice chair of the Senate Health and Human Services committee asked:

[State Sen. Linda] Newell: Is there anyone else in the audience who wishes to testify? Seeing none, testimony phase is over….

Whitney: That was the sound of no one stepping up to testify against the Democrats’ bill, a quiet admission that President Obama’s party stands united behind Medicaid expansion in Colorado, and the bill is all but guaranteed to be signed by Governor John Hickenlooper.

Whitney should have phoned up some of the Obamacare opponents outside the state Capitol–from Attorney General John Suthers to Rep. Mike Coffman to find out what happened.

These guys have been on the war path against Obamacare ever since it changed its name from Romneycare. Is their absence really a "quite admission" of defeat? That hasn't stopped them before. What gives?

As I blogged last year, Coffman specifically singled out Medicaid expansion as a "radical" part of Obama's health plan.

Coffman said that “there are some very radical elements to [Obamacare] such as the expansion of Medicaid, a government run health care program.”

What's Coffman thinking nowadays? What about Suthers?