Republican State Rep. Jason Villalba of Dallas had been in office less than a week when he predicted that the state’s GOP leadership would “soften” on their opposition to Obamacare implementation. Now, he’s doubling down on his desire for the state to pay the huge administrative and bureaucratic costs that would come with a state-run health insurance exchange.
At an event co-hosted by the law-firm of Haynes and Boone and the Texas Tribune, Mr. Villalba told attendees that he thought the Legislature and the governor would “soften” and become more “reasonable” in terms of implementing a state-run health insurance exchange.
Asked by the Dallas Morning News to clarify his position, Villalba swerved even further to the left—not only predicting a softening against Obamacare, but explicitly calling for the state to pay for a health insurance exchange. As he said, “if we don’t do it, the feds will do it for us.”
Villalba said he would rather have a Texas-based solution “so we don’t have the feds coming in telling people how to administer Obamacare.”
Someone has clearly sold Mr. Villalba a bill of goods.
Any perceived benefit to “running” (i.e. footing the bill for) an Obamacare health insurance exchange is severely overshadowed by the administrative and bureaucratic snafus sure to come from “working with” the federal government.
A Wall Street Journal article in November debunked the myth of any state-control over these exchanges. As it reported:
“The main problem is that state are being conscripted as federal contractors. HHS has declined to reveal basic operational details except to make clear that state-based exchanges won’t really be run by the states … So if things don’t work voters will blame the Governors for decisions made in Washington. And when it turns out that Obamacare’s costs are underestimated and its benefits exaggerated, they’ll have enabled an entitlement that many of their constituents oppose.”
Not to mention the fact that the federal government isn’t even ready to implement Obamacare! The Health and Human Services Department has pushed back the deadline for states to tell them if they would set-up an exchange multiple times already.
And Rep. Villalba still thinks it’s a good idea for Texas to voluntarily participate in (and pay for) this boondoggle? Surely he jests.
Texas conservatives are rightly opposing the implementation of state-funded Obamacare insurance exchanges, as well as any expansion in Medicaid—a bureaucratic budget-buster destined by Obamacare to blow-up future state budgets with more bloat.
Now more than ever, your representatives need to hear from you for encouragement to do the right thing. CLICK HERE to tell your state representative and state senator to stand strong against the implementation of Obamacare!