Richards, Mason, Shilling and Wirch offered an alternate motion and spoke strenuously about the fiscal and human aspects of the whole thing, but to no avail. Co-chair Darling was her usual airhead self, very concerned that the federal money would not be there in future years and "we need certainty." Her co-airhead Lazich echoed this phony concern. Jon Richards pointed out that a large chunk of the money they spend on highways and education is also federal and nobody is worried about not getting that.
The main contention was that the people from 100% to 133% of poverty would have access to the exchanges under ACA, so "fact check: 85,000 people will not be cut off from care." No matter that the exchanges were never designed for people with such low income and they cannot afford the out-of-pocket expense that would entail. They were totally deaf to such details. After a couple hours of this, the final vote was chilling. It took less than 45 seconds to call 16 names: one after the other in rapid-fire succession. (It could have been finished even quicker but they had to wait for Grothman to get back in his seat--he likes to walk around.)
The broad view of what they are up to came from Rep. Mandela Barnes at a press conference earlier in the day: "they want to doom one president and groom another."
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