Lasee plans to pull plug on health care reform

[undeterred]

November 2, 2011 By Bob Hague

A Wisconsin state senator says he’ll allow legislation which would implement federal health care reform in the state to die in a committee he chairs. The bill (AB 210) has passed the state Assembly, but now state Senator Frank Lasee says he’ll kill it in his Senate committee. “It’s complying and moving us towards health exchanges, and complying in greater measure with ObamaCare, and I don’t think that’s good for the state,” said DePere Republican Frank Lasee.

Lasee, who’s also running for the U.S. Senate, has been an opponent of the health care reform law, and says the state will be better off waiting on the outcome of legal challenges. “Most of the provisions of ObamaCare don’t come into effect until January 1st, 2014. We have a November 2012 election before then. We should wait to find out how this is changed or repealed before we do anything,” he said.

Lasee said he’s concerned that the Walker administration has accepted 49 million dollars to help implement “ObamaCare.” Lasee chairs the Senate Committee on Insurance and Housing.

http://www.wrn.com/2011/11/senator-plans-to-pull-plug-on-health-care-reform/

[savalez]

1. This is important and should be in general discussion.

[seacaves]

2. It will never be allowed up for debate in our Legislature. I would

love to see it and a vote--to flush out all of the
RepublicansTeaParty politicians for shame!

[dragonlady]

3. He can't stop reform from being implemented

I heard something about this sort of thing happening in another state. If Wisconsin doesn't move forward on planning the health care insurance exchanges, we'll just get the default plan from the federal government. (Assuming the Supreme Court doesn't mess things up.)

[undeterred]

4. Lasee press release today...

(Madison) – Four letters and a press release issued on October 31 by Secretary Dennis Smith and Insurance Commissioner Ted Nickel have prompted State Senator Frank Lasee (R – De Pere) to urge the return of Obamacare Early Innovator grant money: “Two members of the Governor’s cabinet are aware of the substantial difficulties with the proposed ObamaCare regulations and their likely detrimental effects on future budgets, yet they were working to cement the federal law’s language in Wisconsin State Statutes and pave the way for a compliant ObamaCare state healthcare exchange? That is a mistake.”

Lasee further stated, “The concerns expressed by Secretary Smith and Commissioner Nickel provide several compelling reasons for Governor Walker’s Administration to return the $49 million federal Early Innovator funds they accepted in February for the express purpose of establishing a state healthcare exchange. The Federal Government has made it plain that state exchanges are the vehicle by which they plan to implement ObamaCare.”

“Everyone should be raising an eyebrow over the dangerously mixed messages state leadership has sent. We are in a lawsuit to prevent ObamaCare, while at the same time striving to be one of the first to implement the federal law we are fighting.” Senator Lasee said.

An October 4 letter from the Federal Department of Health and Human Services to the Wisconsin Office of the Commissioner of Insurance (OCI) praises Commissioner Nickel for an emergency rule his office had written to bring the state into compliance with ObamaCare regulations and further acknowledges his efforts to put permanent rules in place. AB 210, the bill intended to establish those permanent rules in state law, would have entrenched federal law in state statutes and left Wisconsin completely vulnerable to federal whim.

Senator Lasee last week killed AB 210 in the Senate Committee on Insurance and Housing because of the threat it posed to Wisconsinites. OCI had registered in favor of the bill at a public hearing held on October 25th.

“It can’t be an accident that on one hand the State of Wisconsin is saying we reject ObamaCare, while on the other, we have pushed toward it. Until the governor’s administration returns $49 million in Early Innovator funds, Wisconsin remains at risk.” Lasee asserted. “My office will continue to seek answers in this matter. In the meantime, I urge Governor Walker’s administration to immediatly return the $49 million in ObamaCare implementation funds. Of the states that have accepted these Early Innovator funds, his is now the only Republican administration not to recognize the strings attached and return the money.”

http://www.wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=252423