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February 06, 2017 12:28 PM UTC

Why The Insurance Exchange Repeal Bill Is Goddamn Nonsense

  • 11 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Freshman Sen. Jimmy Smallwood (R).

John Frank and John Ingold of the Denver Post report on continued posturing over Senate Bill 17-003, the all-but-doomed measure from Republicans to repeal the Connect For Health Colorado insurance marketplace:

The leaders at Colorado’s health insurance exchange are working to keep alive the online marketplace, even if the Affordable Care Act is repealed, while Republican state lawmakers want to shut it down now.

The contradictory approaches put Connect for Health Colorado, the state-based exchange where 175,000 residents purchased insurance in 2016, at the center of a debate that is only amplified by the efforts in Washington to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature health care law.

The national and state efforts, though separate, are fueling uncertainty in Colorado about the future of health care coverage and crystallizing the political divide after the election of President Donald Trump…

The bill’s primary sponsor is freshman Sen. Jim “No Jokes Please” Smallwood, a health insurance broker–whose profession outside the Capitol presents obvious questions about his motives for running this legislation.

The freshman Republican lawmaker from Parker is adamant that his bill is not a political statement or “a vendetta against President Obama.” Instead, he argues, the measure is designed to save the state money by eliminating a tax break for insurance companies and preventing future fees on health care plans…

“There appear to be some obvious failures systemically within the gut of our state-based exchange, and my thought was, would the same thing happen if we were on healthcare.gov?” Smallwood said in a recent interview. [Pols emphasis]

And this, folks, is where the efforts of national and state Republican lawmakers come into fundamental conflict. Colorado Republicans want to shut down our insurance marketplace in favor of the federal system, but Washington D.C. Republicans want to shut down the federal system. Each one is using the other as their excuse–Smallwood says the feds will do it better, and the GOP Congress says the states will do it better.

Obviously, only one of them can be right! And it would be a real, you know, problem if national and local Republicans were to both get their way, wouldn’t it? Once you understand that they can’t both have their way, it becomes clear that one of these two legislative pushes is a huge mistake. For a party that had six years to figure out what to do when they finally got the chance to repeal the bête noire of Obamacare, you’d think they’d have a consistent plan from the federal to the state level.

Either nobody has thought this through, or nobody cares–and neither is a good way to make literal life-and-death policy.

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11 thoughts on “Why The Insurance Exchange Repeal Bill Is Goddamn Nonsense”

  2. I've got a better idea. Let's repeal both, and go back to the way health care worked in 2009. I don't recall any humanitarian crisis in 2009 in health care.

    Why should America be held hostage to this failed idea at all?

    2. Damn straight.  Why should we be held hostage to this failed idea?  Let's be held hostage to the failed idea of healthcare prior to ACA.  People can go to the ER and let the taxpayers foot the bill and allow insurance companies to kick people off if they have "preexisting conditions".   God, you are just full of awesome ideas.  <sarcasm off>

      Do you have brain damage Moldy?  You've said some stupid things in your pathetic day, but this takes the cake. 

      1. Excuse me, but I cannot let your "brain damage" remark go unchallenged, that's really quite beyond the pale . . . 

        . . . do you have even the slightest bit of evidence that it has a brain?

    3. By the way, since you think we should return to the pre-Obamacare health insurance system, how do you propose to insure those with preexisting conditions or those too poor to afford private insurance? Under the old system, those people couldn't buy insurance or were deemed by the insurance companies ineligible for it. Under the old system, the "free market" left them by the side of the road to fend for themselves without insurance. In the pre-Obamacare world, one third of the bankruptcies in the United States were the result of  uninsured medical conditions which of course caused my insurance premiums to increase exponentially.

      You rave against the Obamacare mandate but in every state across the country, we mandate, by statute, that automobile owners purchase car insurance.

      You want to repeal the taxes that pay for a large share of Obamacare. So, how does the Republican Party propose to pay for its replacement which according to the entire Republican leadership will result in better coverage at a lower cost for each individual insured? So far, no one, including the President, has been able to answer that question. Can you answer it?

      I'm sure you have the answers.

          1. Whether he responds is irrelevant. He sets himself/herself up as a straw man almost every time he/she posts a comment which allows all of us to show how silly many of the Republican arguments are. We should thank him/her for his/her assistance.

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