Ed Sealover at The Denver Business Journal reports:
A business-brokered bill to create a state health care exchange in Colorado faces an uncertain future after Republicans united against it in a Senate committee Thursday when Democrats refused to add an amendment requiring Gov. John Hickenlooper to seek a waiver from federal health care reform. …
The amendment — which was offered by Sen. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield, but was written by the bill’s House sponsor, Republican Majority Leader Amy Stephens of Monument — blindsided a coalition of business groups that had worked for months to craft a bill acceptable to them. …
[T]he bipartisan legislative coalition shattered when Mitchell introduced an amendment that would ban the bill from being implemented unless Hickenlooper … requests and receives a federal waiver for Colorado from all requirements of the [so-called] Affordable Care Act.
See also:
- ColoradoPeakPolitics: “And just last week Hick himself refused to rule out seeking a full opt-out of Obamacare. “
- Tim Hoover’s post at the Denver Post‘s The Spot: Exchange bill’s fate in doubt with Stephens amendment; Hickenlooper livid.
- Linda Gorman‘s Issue Backgrounder (pdf): Senate Bill 11-200, The Colorado Health Benefit Exchange.
- Colorado Health Insurance Exchange bound to be strangled by federal controls
