Lawmaker calls anti-Obamacare bill’s demise ‘betrayal’
Rep. Jason Spencer on Monday called a decision by the Senate Rules Committee to table — and effectively kill — his anti-Obamacare legislation an “eleventh-hour betrayal.”
House Bill 707 would have barred any state or local government or agency from using its resources to advocate for Medicaid expansion, operate a health insurance exchange or operate a navigator program to help Georgians apply for health coverage on the federal Health Insurance Marketplace.
The Rules Committee’s decision to table HB 707 means it won’t get a chance at passage. Monday was the last day of the 2014 legislative session to get on the Senate calendar so a bill could be voted on this year.
“I will identify the Republican Benedict Arnolds, the King George the Third and his myrmidons who shipwrecked this path breaking, patriotic bill to prevent the federal Leviathan from commandeering the machinery of state government or resources to enforce ill-conceived federal health insurance mandates,” Spencer, R-Woodbine, said in a press release Monday afternoon.
HB 707, however, isn’t necessarily dead. Its language was added to Senate Bill 292, which would establish a statewide Alzheimer’s Disease Registry. If the Senate votes the new version through on Tuesday or Thursday, then SB 292 would head to the governor’s desk.
— Misty Williams
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