February 05, 2010 09:22 AM UTC

CD-4 Republicans Stand with Health Insurance Companies

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• by: ace41

There is not much about the health care reform debate that everyone – Democrats, Republicans and the unaffiliated – agree on.  Except for one thing – they all hate health insurance companies.

We may not agree on the solution to the health care mess, but everyone agrees on the villain.

Which is why I was shocked to hear all four candidates in the CD-4 Republican debate tonight say that they would oppose Betsy Markey’s bill to remove the anti-trust protection for the insurance giants.

Let’s be clear.  This is no wide-eyed liberal scheme.  Under the bill that Markey proposed, health insurance companies would no longer be protected from liability for price fixing – a protection that most other red-blooded American businesses do not enjoy.

And this is a concept that has seen support from Republicans in the House and the Senate.  

Moreover, this is a policy proposal that has wide support in the public realm.  It would seem to be an easy issue for a Republican candidate trying to demonstrate a little bipartisanship (an issue that voters care about right now too) to lob on to.  

So I was truly baffled – from both a political and a policy perspective – to see these four GOP candidates who claim to love capitalism so much profess their opposition to the bill.

Furthermore, this is just another piece of evidence to me that “rising star” Cory Gardner is not ready for prime time.  A smart candidate would not have left themselves open to the attack that he supported allowing health insurance companies to price fix and collude to drive up health care costs for consumers.

I am sure Bob Moore, who I have to say does an excellent job covering this stuff, will have an article tomorrow about the debate.  I hope he takes the opportunity to ask these candidates to clarify their answer on this issue.

I truly do want to know their rationale, no matter how crazy, for standing with the insurance giants on this one.