Governor pulls health exchange bill after tea party objects

By Carrie Teegardin and April Hunt

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A last-minute tea party protest prompted Gov. Nathan Deal on Wednesday to shelve legislation that would have planned for a Georgia health insurance exchange.

The new federal health care law gives every state the option of designing its own insurance marketplace, and the legislation would have created a commission to recommend an approach for Georgia. State leaders said it would have allowed them to plan for an exchange while also continuing to fight the federal law in court.

The legislation enjoyed wide support until phone calls started rolling in this week from tea partyers. Deal said Wednesday that he would put the legislation on hold and instead create an advisory committee to study the state's options for an exchange.

"The governor understands Georgians’ suspicions about any legislation associated with Obamacare," said a statement from Deal's office. "He shares their opposition to the federal takeover of health care."

The statement said the legislation, House Bill 476, was designed to preserve as much control as Georgia can get if the federal health care law moves forward.

"If Georgia must have an insurance exchange under federal law, the governor wants to ensure that our exchange is established and run by Georgians," the statement said. "The alternative is having an exchange established by and run by Washington bureaucrats."

Debbie Dooley, a leader in the Atlanta Tea Party and the Georgia Tea Party Patriots, said the group learned about the bill late last week and asked its supporters to call the governor's office and top leaders at the Capitol. Dooley said she and other tea party leaders asked key legislators to pull the legislation and focus on defeating the federal law.

"You don't win battles by waving the white flag with one hand and continuing to fight with the other hand," Dooley said.

Meanwhile, the House took up a bill that would allow Georgia to form alliances with other states on health care. The push for interstate compacts is part of a national effort to promote states' rights and defy federal law.

"This House Bill constitutionally allows us to reassert our authority as a state," Rep. Rick Jasperse, R-Jasper, said of House Bill 461.

The measure passed 108-63 over vocal objections, mostly from Democrats. Opponents  said a compact, often done for transportation projects, still requires congressional and presidential approval -- making it a long shot as legislation and more about political theater.

"It basically says nullify, and if we don't get what we want, we're going to secede," said Rep. Scott Holcomb, D-Atlanta.

Supporters of the exchange legislation were caught off guard by HB 476's demise. "I'm just very disappointed that a very uncontroversial piece of legislation that the governor and key legislators and all the stakeholders in the state were supportive of would be derailed," said Cindy Zeldin, executive director of Georgians for a Healthy Future, a nonprofit group that supports health reform.

Experts said waiting until next year to start planning an exchange could be problematic. The exchange would have to be running by 2014, and Georgia would have to show the federal government it had a solid plan by 2013.