September 18, 2012 12:22 AM UTC

Rep. Cindy Acree: "Somebody's Gonna Hurt"

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• by: Colorado Pols

A statement remarkable for its “let them eat cake” aloofness on the matter of Medicaid coverage for poor Colorado children and families, recorded last week from Rep. Cindy Acree of Colorado House District 40. Rep. Acree, as you may know, is one of the Democratic Party’s principal targets this year as they campaign to retake the one-seat GOP majority Colorado House.

Top-targeted incumbents should definitely be more careful than this:

CINDY ACREE: if we expand Medicaid beyond the 400 percent–the 400,000 recipients we currently have–how are going to pay for it? We need to help people pay their own way. Okay. We need to make sure we don’t expand Medicaid beyond the poorest of the poor, and get off the backs of insurance companies [Pols emphasis] and allow them to offer products that people can afford. The state’s the barrier for most child-only policies, the state’s the barrier when we don’t allow companies to give you major medical-only policies. For some reason we have this idea that nothing is better than something.

We can’t be everything to everybody. And we’ve got to tighten our belt, and we’re going to have to cut things that aren’t necessary to the function of general society, and we’re going to have to move on. Somebody’s gonna hurt. That’s just the way it is. [Pols emphasis]

For a generic Republican candidate, some of this “belt tightening” rhetoric makes sense–or at least might not be considered as politically damaging. In a newly competitive district like Rep. Acree’s, though, cutting health care for poor kids and families is not a subject we would choose to expound on. Acree’s HD-40 seat is one of a number that became dramatically more competitive following reapportionment, a situation she has never encountered.

And based on this little stream of consciousness, she might not be ready for the competition.

Even if we did decide to engage on this delicate issue, we would never, ever say “somebody’s gonna hurt” in reference to a policy goal we are seeking to achieve. That’s the kind of rhetoric that maybe goes over alright in a safe GOP district, but horrifies everybody else.