August 20, 2018 12:03 PM UTC

Dems Bust Stapleton On Health Care BS

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• by: Colorado Pols

A press release from Colorado Democrats today highlights some tellingly bad answers from Republican gubernatorial candidate Walker Stapleton on health care in a new Colorado Springs Gazette story, helpfully pulling them out from behind Phil Anschutz’s paywall for public consumption:

“Stapleton has been a yes-man for Donald Trump’s crusade to rob Coloradans of their health care, and voters aren’t going to be fooled by this sloppy attempt to hide his terrible policies that would result in hundreds of thousands of Coloradans losing their coverage and higher costs for the rest of us.” said Eric Walker, Colorado Democratic Party spokesperson.

Colorado Politics on Stapleton’s lack of a health care plan

“Stapleton has been short on specifics when it comes to his own prescriptions for health care — a page devoted to health care issues appeared on his campaign website only in the last week…”

“Stapleton’s health care plan is built from a blueprint of if’s…”

Colorado Politics on Stapleton lying about Medicaid expansion:

“Stapleton said when he became treasurer in 2011, the state budget was about $18 billion. This year it topped $29 billion, and he blames much of that spending on the Medicaid expansion.

“That’s misleading, however. Most of that money came from the federal government, not directly from Colorado taxpayers at the expense of other budget needs, such as transportation or education.” [Pols emphasis]

Blaming the expansion of Medicaid for the state’s inability to pay for other priorities is common practice for Colorado Republicans, since it gives them both large scary numbers to throw around as well as the added bonus of pitting the so-called “makers” against the so-called “takers.” It doesn’t actually work if you understand that the Medicaid expansion was a federally-funded expansion, and didn’t come out of any other state budgetary buckets.

Along with the fictional portrayal of single-payer health care as a new expense of trillions of dollars when it would in fact save trillions in existing health care expenses, these are part of a long history of scare tactics from Republicans on health care that do not hold up to even rudimentary scrutiny. In the end they are arguments that rely on an ignorant voter in order to achieve their goal, and that should be the lede for every story about health care in the governor’s race unless Stapleton changes course.

Which we don’t really expect.