January 28, 2014 02:57 PM UTC

Greg Brophy Slams Stephens, "Amycare"

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• by: Colorado Pols

Video above from a Republican "Meet the Candidates" event in Estes Park this past Saturday, attended by Republican gubernatorial candidates Greg Brophy, Steve House, and Mike Kopp. There was a lot of uninteresting boilerplate discussion at this event, but it turned briefly lively when an audience member brought up the subject of Colorado's new health insurance exchange–known to many conservatives derisively as "Amycare" after its chief Republican proponent Rep. Amy Stephens. Stephens, as you may know, is now a candidate in the crowded GOP U.S. Senate primary.

Brophy doesn't have much use for Stephens or "Amycare."

AUDIENCE: I've got three questions, but I need to ask one, that's my hot button. These health care exchanges. What are we going to do about Amycare? [Pols emphasis]

BROPHY: First and foremost, though, I actually think it's going to fail of its own weight, really really soon. You can't have 335,000 Coloradans lose their health insurance this year, and guess what–even more are going to lose their insurance next fall because the small business mandate will kick into effect next fall. And everybody, or almost everybody who is employed by a small business they get their health insurance through is going to lose it then also…

We can, and if we have a Republican legislature we can repeal the health care exchange law. Period. Just repeal the darn thing. And it's failing also…

Mel's asked this question before, he's kind of wedded to the idea of the second place finisher in the Senate primary being the Lt. Governor. But what if that person was a supporter of the health care exchanges? That would be absolutely unacceptable to me… [Pols emphasis]

We pointed out a few weeks ago that Brophy seemed to have decided that bashing his fellow candidates for Governor was his only real option since his own campaign can't raise any money. But now Brophy is starting down the path of bashing any Republican candidates running in 2014.

As you already know or at least should know, Brophy's spiel about 335,000 Coloradans who have "lost their health insurance" is nonsense–but nobody in this forum was going to take issue with that. There's no mention of Stephens by name from Brophy, but the stated goal of repealing her signature achievement in the legislature, and the unequivocal judgment that no supporter of the health insurance exchange would be "acceptable" to him…safe to say, everyone in that forum understood what Brophy was getting at.

Next time we write that Stephens has base problems, you don't have to take our word for it.