February 09, 2017 11:16 AM UTC

Republican Legislators Can't Keep Healthcare Talking Points Straight

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• by: Colorado Pols

As you may have heard, President Trump and Congressional Republicans would like to repeal Obamacare…except that they have no idea what to do for a replacement plan. Here in Colorado, GOP lawmakers have their own proposal to tank the State Health Exchange, part of a nonsense plan that would rely on the Affordable Care Act to pick up the slack at a federal level (of course, the ACA may or may not continue to exist under the current Congress).

As John Frank of the Denver Post reported earlier this week, state Sen. Jim Smallwood is leading Republican efforts to repeal the state health exchange. Take a look at how he explains the GOP rationale here:

Sen. Jim Smallwood, a health insurance broker, is leading the effort to repeal the state exchange, a move that would send Colorado residents to the federal marketplace to buy insurance. The bill is not expected to advance through the Democratic-led House, but the GOP is rallying to the cause.

The freshman Republican lawmaker from Parker is adamant that his bill is not a political statement or “a vendetta against President Obama.” [Pols emphasis] 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.

According to Sen. Smallwood, local efforts to eliminate the state health exchange have nothing at all to do with partisan rancor over Obamacare.

Except…well, that’s not what state Sen. Owen Hill says in an Op-Ed for the Colorado Statesman this week:

It won’t be easy, but Republicans have promised the American people a better way on health care, and our state and national leaders must deliver. [Pols emphasis]

Voters have elected a Republican majority in D.C., expecting them to repeal Obamacare…

…I’m proud that my fellow Republicans in Washington are determined to fulfill their campaign promise to repeal the ACA. But this is no mere public policy debate because real people’s lives and jobs are on the line. The GOP Congress and President Trump must also keep another of their campaign promises — to do right by American workers — if they want this repeal to truly improve the lives and health care of the American people.

When Republicans in Congress repeal Obamacare as they have pledged, they must make sure to replace it with a fair and free market where the government plays by the same rules as the rest of us. This means paying fair market value for health care services. Washington D.C. has mismanaged Medicare and Medicaid for years, forcing the rest of us to pick up the tab in other ways.

Republican legislators are saying two totally different things in response to concerns about trying to eliminate the state health exchange. Sen. Smallwood says this has nothing to do with the ACA and that his bill would allow the federal insurance market to pick up the slack for Colorado. Sen. Hill says this has everything to do with the ACA and is hopeful that there won’t even be a federal marketplace for healthcare sometime soon.

This entire exercise is completely idiotic, so perhaps it’s no surprise that the State Senate Majority can’t even keep their talking points straight.