Even as Jonathan Stickland was fighting against liberal efforts to bring Obamacare to Texas, his opponent was working to bring Obama’s big government program to the Lone Star State.
While Scott Fisher was serving as “Past Board Chair” of Tarrant County’s taxpayer-funded hospital, JPS Health Network, he advocated for the state to be pulled into ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion scheme.
Documents uncovered by Texas Scorecard reveal that in April 2013, Scott Fisher urged fellow JPS board members to pass a resolution “supporting Medicaid expansion for Texas” under the provisions of ObamaCare.
Scott Fisher’s ObamaCare resolution passed the JPS board just one week after Rep. Jonathan Stickland (R–Bedford) led the fight against an amendment to the state budget that would have implemented the program. The liberal leadership of the Texas House brought an amendment to the budget implementing the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion before conservatives, led by Stickland, turned the effort back.
Transparency advocates have also criticized Scott Fisher for his efforts to obscure the operations of JPS Health Network from Tarrant County taxpayers.
During his two sessions in office, Jonathan Stickland has repeatedly defeated efforts by liberal Republicans to embrace Obamacare, grow government, and give special privileges to illegal aliens.
For his principled leadership, Stickland has received accolades from every conservative movement group in Texas, including Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, Texas Home School Coalition, Texas Right to Life, Young Conservatives of Texas, the National Rifle Association, and Texas Values, among many others.
In retribution for his conservative record, Stickland is now being attacked in the Republican primary. Liberal Republican legislators who have been forced from office are funneling money to Fisher’s negative campaign.
Expanding Medicaid under Obamacare is the number one healthcare platform plank of the Texas Democratic Party. No wonder then that Democrats have also been working with the Scott Fisher campaign to fuel nasty personal attacks against Stickland.
Liberal Republicans, like Fisher, will claim on the campaign trail they oppose ObamaCare, yet in office – as Fisher did – will vote to force on taxpayers the law’s most burdensome requirements.
The 2013 Medicaid expansion plan supported by Fisher would have cost Texans an additional $87 billion over the next decade – a poison pill which would have blown up the state budget and paved the way for future tax increases.
