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July 31, 2019 02:27 PM UTC

Colorado Celebrates Healthcare Savings; Gardner Shamelessly Claims Credit

  • 7 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Gov. Jared Polis outlines his healthcare savings plan in April. Note the absence of anyone who looks anything like Sen. Cory Gardner.

As Anna Staver reports for the Denver Post, healthcare costs will decrease significantly next year thanks to legislation passed by the Colorado legislature earlier this year:

Colorado has received federal approval for a new program that is expected to save families who buy health insurance through the individual marketplace thousands of dollars a year, Gov. Jared Polis is announcing Wednesday.

The program, known as reinsurance, is expected to drop premiums by an average of 18.2% when it gets under way in January, state officials estimate…

…The reinsurance program is expected to pool $260 million in state and federal money and use it to cover the costliest medical bills among the 250,000 Coloradans who buy their health insurance on the exchange. Taking that burden off of insurance providers will enable them to lower premiums overall.

Colorado is the ninth state to secure a federal waiver for a reinsurance program. Minnesota’s reinsurance program brought down its 2018 premiums by about 11.3%, and Alaska’s dropped by a statewide average of 26%, according to a Georgetown University Health Policy Institute report.

We noted this impressive 18% savings when figures were first projected by the Colorado Division of Insurance earlier this month. The reinsurance program is part of a broader healthcare savings plan promoted by Gov. Jared Polis and passed by Democrats in the state legislature. This reinsurance program is such a good idea, in fact, that Republican Sen. Cory Gardner is now TRYING TO TAKE CREDIT FOR IT:

This did not go over well with Colorado lawmakers such as State Sen. Kerry Donovan (D-Vail):

Likewise, Sen. Brittany Pettersen (D-Lakewood) was not amused:

 

But wait, it gets even more ridiculous. Not only did Gardner have nothing to do with this proposal — his support for getting rid of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would ultimately kill off the reinsurance deal entirely. As the Colorado Sun reports:

That’s because the Trump Administration — the same one that is expected to sign off on the program — is also backing a lawsuit to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act, the health law that makes a lot of the funding for the reinsurance program possible…

…Earlier this month, a panel of judges at the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard a lawsuit brought by the state of Texas and others — with the Trump Administration’s backing — arguing that the whole Affordable Care Act should be thrown out. The argument requires its own explainer (like this one), but the upshot from the hearing was that it didn’t gowell for defenders of the health care law. A challenge to the law also known as Obamacare appears headed for the U.S. Supreme Court.

If that lawsuit ultimately succeeds, then Colorado’s reinsurance program in its current form is basically doomed. The subsidies that provide money for the program — and the entire section of federal law that the program lives under — would be gone. Lawmakers would need to do some significant tinkering just to preserve any vestige of it.

This is not the first time that Gardner has been so blatantly duplicitous on the issue of healthcare. In March 2017, Gardner was one of four Republican Senators who signed onto a letter defending the expansion of Medicaid in states like Colorado. A few months later, Gardner voted in favor of a proposal to gut the ACA that quite literally would have ended Medicaid coverage for millions of Americans.

To recap, Coloradans are going to see a major decrease in healthcare costs in 2020 thanks to Gov. Polis and Democrats in the state legislature. Senator Gardner had nothing to do with this and is supportive of federal policies that would destroy this reinsurance plan, but he’s raising his hand like a conquering hero in the meantime.

Please, don’t clap.

Comments

7 thoughts on “Colorado Celebrates Healthcare Savings; Gardner Shamelessly Claims Credit

  1. "Mediocre white male" is as perfect a description of Gardner as any. He's only where he is because of people's unfortunate tendency to think confidence is better than competence.

    1. The senator appeared on at least one of our local Republican TV stations (they all are…) this morning, taking full credit for making this happen.

      It has been established for a very long time that Cory Gardner will say and do anything to advance his lucrative career.

      1. Duke, your implication that GJ's little two stations give any thought to political affiliation gives them too much credit. Their newsroom staffers, few as they are, run anything that comes their way to fill their daily beasts. They don't read anything, not even the local paper, and are woefully ill-informed. They're kids right out of college working to put resume tapes together to move up to a market that pays more than minimum wage. They're suckers for any “story'' that comes to them, the more packaging the better. Gardner's staff knows this and takes complete advantage.

         

        1. Gertie – 

          You know Jean Reynolds, KKCO's anchor, is married to Rick Wagner, don't you? 

          That's Rick "Ambulance Chaser/Right-Wing Radio Shill/Pretended He Was A Cop For A While" Wagner, to those who know him.  

          1. Of course. But Reynolds has nothing to do with the “news'' report. She's paid to show up and read the teleprompter for the 5 and 10 p.m. news. That's all she does, having failed spectacularly as news director in a short stint several years ago.

             

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