Georgia repugican Brags About Sabotaging Obamacare as Governor Gets Paid by Health Care Industry

by Allen Clifton 

It comes as no surprise to liberals when we hear about efforts by wingnuts to do whatever they can to sabotage the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”), but it’s rare when we see one of them admit to doing so.
Sure, it’s obvious with the lies they perpetuate, the myths they spread and their seemingly endless campaigns of misinformation that they will do whatever they can to impede the progress of the law.
Well, Georgia repugican Ralph Hudgens, who serves as Georgia’s Insurance Commissioner, openly admitted that his state was doing all it could to “obstruct Obamacare.”

“The problem is Obamacare.  We’ve got to now determine what we can do to solve that problem.  Let me tell you what we are doing; everything in our power to be an obstructionist.  You.. probably have heard about the exchanges.  Well exchanges are coming to Georgia, but the state is not setting them up.  The federal government is going to set them up.  But we have passed a law and with the help of Senator McCoon and others, we have passed a law that says that a navigator, which is a position in that exchange, has to be licensed by our Department of Insurance.  The Obamacare law says that we cannot require them to be an insurance agent, so we said fine, we’ll just require them to be a licensed navigator. So we’re going to make up the test, and basically you take the insurance agent test, you erase the name, you write ‘navigator test’ on it.”

Basically what this gentleman is saying is that the State of Georgia is doing whatever it can to bypass laws and make the implementation of the new health care law so difficult that it fails.
He also goes on to brag about the “drastic” rise in health care premiums the people of Georgia will experience due to the Affordable Care Act.  Going as far as to say they’ve passed a law that says insurance companies must send letters with certain documents stating that it isn’t the State of Georgia that’s responsible for their possible hike in health care cost—it’s “Obamacare” that’s responsible.
So they’ve passed a law which forces insurance companies to lie.  Because reality is showing that the states which want the Affordable Care Act to work are showing much lower premiums than previously expected.
Then if you’re going to put out some propaganda flier which is meant to promote some kind of realistic professionalism, at least call the law by its real name.  But that’s the thing, most repugicans have no clue what the name of the law actually is.  If you were to call the health care law anything other than “Obamacare,” most repugicans would be absolutely clueless as to what you might be talking about.
But this admission by Georgia’s Insurance Commissioner shows the underlying issue that’s causing most of the problems with implementing the new health care law—repugican obstruction.
Except this particular case in Georgia has a twist.  Georgia Governor Nathan Deal, also a repugican, has been receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars funneled through a Political Action Committee called “Real PAC” — much of it from health care industry giants like Aetna, BlueCross BlueShield of Georgia, Humana, United Health Group and WellCare of Georgia.  Oh, and most of them have voiced at least some sort of opposition to “Obamacare.”
But why should Georgians expect any better from Governor Deal?  After all, he resigned from Congress to avoid an ethics investigation into (take a wild guess) — his business dealings with the state.
While repugicans have spent years trying to perpetuate these myths about the Affordable Care Act, it’s their actions to sabotage the law which are causing the main issues with seeing that it’s properly carried out.
Nothing quite like complaining about a problem which you are the primary cause of.  And in this case, we have possible collusion between the state’s Insurance Commissioner, Governor Deal and some of the biggest health insurance companies.
Because who cares about providing affordable access to health care for people who need it, right?  When there’s a buck to be made and a Democrat in the White House to obstruct, what’s best for the people of your state doesn’t matter, apparently.
Though at the end of the day, the truth will come out.  The states with legislation which want the law to work will see it perform well and the states that have legislation trying to sabotage the law will see a lot of problems and complaints.
But the funny thing is this, we already have a great example of how “Obamacare” will impact the country. We don’t need to look any further than Massachusetts, where Mitt Romney (former repugican presidential candidate) signed the landmark health care bill into law back in 2006.  A law which is still popular with 63% of the state’s residents.
And while rhetoric and propaganda might be something wingnuts often rely on, luckily for liberals all we need to turn to is reality.