Legislative District 28 was held up as the paragon of moderation for its refusal to join fellow party members and many conservative Democrats in opposing Medicaid expansion.
Contrary to media reports, many of the Precinct Committee people in Legislative District 28 were not driven by a moderate ideology, but by money. According to records, over a quarter of the PCs in LD 28 are lobbyists or people who stand to benefit monetarily under Brewercare, and they control not only their votes, but the proxies of many fellow LD28 PCs.
That small detail never made it into an assessment of their “moderate” decision making.
The background of the controlling clique in LD28 is unusual for Republican LDs and operatives. After all, it is the Arizona Democrat Party that is running a former lobbyist, Fred DuVal, for the top spot on the state ticket.
LD28 stands as an anathema to the vast majority of grassroots Republican PCs. Those PCs are retired military personnel, stay-at-home-moms, small business owners, Ron Paul millennials, and retirees, who contrary to the LD28 PCs, stand too lose a great deal should Brewercare’s corporate welfare package survive legal challenges.
One Republican activist says there is little doubt why the lobbyists would support Brewer; he points to the monetary gains made by healthcare corporations since the advent of Obamacare. “For the six months ended July 31, 2013, Vanguard Health Care Fund delivered solid absolute and relative returns, generating 19.18% for Investor Shares and 19.21% for Admiral Shares. The fund’s benchmark, the MSCI All Country World Health Care Index, posted a 15.54% gain.” That same report showed that “as of July 31, almost 13% of the fund was invested in the stocks of health insurance or managed care companies, more than double the allocation in the benchmark.”
On September 9, 2013, Vanguard filed a PAC with Arizona’s Secretary of State.
In November of last year, a conservative website, SeeingRedAZ.com, outlined the takeover of LD28. According to SeeingRedAz.com, a woman named Kathy Petsas, a RINO who used the term “DeKookification” to describe her efforts to rid the Republican party of those with whom she disagreed, chaired the “nominating committee for the statutory meeting of the precinct committeeman of Legislative District 28. As an integral part of her mission to ensure the defeat of grassroots conservatives,” Petsas put together a slate that would guarantee “moderation.”
According to SeingRedAZ.com, “Among the conservatives Petsas singled out for dismissal were former State Chairman Randy Pullen and current Maricopa County Chairman Rob Haney,” who had been “twice elected as County Chair by wide margins. A committed establishment functionary, Petsas has brazenly reveled in her sham notoriety courtesy of columnist Roberts. It’s a big deal to Petsas, given that the district — the most liberal GOP LD in the state — has long been the home of Arizona’s two U.S. Senators, John McCain and Jon Kyl.”
In June 2012, Petsas told Arizona Republic columnist, Laurie Roberts, the woman who coined the phrase “Dekookification,” that “party leaders — the people elected by precinct committeemen — are interested only in promoting ideologues over pragmatic Republicans.”
There is no doubt that pragmatism prevailed for the members of LD28. “Make hay while the sun shines” was the practical consideration for many LD28 PCs.
The question for many then becomes: Who do those PCs represent? Are they representing the average Republican, or are they representing their corporate masters? That question is on the minds of many other PCs who are now currently censuring the handful of Republicans who joined Brewer in her effort.
For her part, Brewer is doing everything she can to help those who helped her. The Governor held a major fundraiser for the group of Republicans who betrayed their fellow lawmakers in joining the Democrat minority in the House and Senate to roll Republican leadership in a late night move to pass the largest expansion of a federal program in the history of Arizona.
According to a post on the Sonoran Alliance by the American Post Gazette, the Governor hosted “a fundraiser for Sens. Steve Pierce, John McComish, Adam Driggs, and Bob Worsley, and Reps. Heather Carter, Kate McGee, Doug Coleman, Jeff Dial, Doris Goodale, Ethan Orr, Frank Pratt, Bob Robson, and T.J. Shope at the home of hospital CEO Reg Ballantyne,” read the post Gazette post. “This is, quite clearly, a quid pro quo: they’re getting paid off for their ‘yes’ votes to swell the rolls of Medicaid recipients at the cost of not only sick people (via a bed tax), but the American taxpayer as well (via increased Medicaid payments from the feds to Arizona, then to the hospitals). There is no other way to characterize this as anything but legal corruption.”
“While the invite, sent out by Rep. Heather Carter, suggests a $500 donation for each legislator, rumor has it that the hospital-industrial complex donors have to have $6,500 to get in the door ($500 for EACH)! That’s how they plan on rewarding each one of these traitors with at least $100K for their 2014 campaigns,” the post continued. “Follow the money, people. This is corporate cronyism at its worst.”
Brewer’s closest advisor, Chuck Coughlin, has also raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend Brewercare from a lawsuit by the Goldwater Institute, who are fighting the corporate welfare program, and to a lesser extent, the small People’s Veto campaign. Coughlin went so far as to hire professional signature gatherers, who attempted to confuse residents with a meaningless petition in support of the Governor and hired thugs to block the few People’s Veto signature gatherers at various venues around the state.
Loren Heal, in an article for FreedomWorks.org, wrote that in August of 2012, a “consortium of the state’s hospitals, insurers, and left-wing groups” hired consultant Chuck Coughlin of High Ground and socialized medicine proponent and leftist, Peter Burns, to ensure that Medicaid expansion, a part of Obamacare, was passed in Arizona.
According to The Daily Courier, just this weekend, “The Yavapai County Republican Committee voted Saturday to censure a handful of Arizona legislators over their support of Medicaid expansion. The censure resolution, according to Yavapai County Republican Chairman Jim Dutton, is a way for political organizations to express strong disapproval of the actions of elected leaders. Many of those elected officials were in attendance for the meeting.
Named in the censure for their votes on Medicaid expansion were Gov. Jan Brewer, Republican Sens. Steve Pierce, Adam Driggs, John McComish, Rich Crandall and Bob Worsley, and Republican Reps. Heather Carter, Doug Coleman, Jeff Dial, Doris Goodale, Kate Brophy McGee, Ethan Orr, Frank Pratt, Bob Robson and T.J. Shope.
While Republicans around the state continue the battle against expansion, Enroll America, a national non-profit funded by the health-care industry, insurance companies and private and non-profit donors, and run by staffers of President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, according to the Arizona Republic, is working to get as many people covered as possible.
The Arizona Republic reports that “Arizona non-profit groups have been awarded $5.4 million in federal grants to hire “navigators,” outreach workers and others trained to answer questions, encourage participation and to help people enroll through the marketplace or in the state’s expanded Medicaid program. Joining about 100 paid navigators and hundreds of trained application counselors are staff and volunteers from Arizona hospitals, health centers and advocacy organizations. Arizona’s four grantees are scrambling to hire navigators at annual salaries ranging from $30,000 to $40,000.”
There is big money to be made by those associated with Obamacare.
The initial draft of the AHCCCS’s hospital assessment that will fund Governor Brewer’s Medicaid expansion plan has been completed. During the last legislative session, hospitals fought hard and spent big money in support of expansion. It will pay off in a substantial way.
According to the draft, nearly every hospital system in the state is expected to gain money overall during the first six months of the expansion. Additional information on AHCCCS’s website indicates three hospitals from Banner Health’s system, along with Scottsdale Healthcare’s Shea Medical Center and Oro Valley Hospital, will lose money from the assessment during the first year. However, Banner will still gain over $14 million in Medicaid payments from all of its other hospitals.
The total collected from all hospitals will be $75 million under the assessment, and they will receive a return of nearly $184 million in the first year.
Earlier this month, 36 Arizona state legislators and three Arizona residents sued Brewer over the unconstitutional expansion of the Obamacare Medicaid program.
In a lawsuit filed by the Goldwater Institute in Maricopa County Superior Court on Thursday, plaintiffs are asking a judge to block implementation of the new law. They argue that expansion violated Proposition 108, a constitutional protection passed by Arizona voters in 1992 to require a two-thirds majority of legislators whenever levying a tax increase. The lawsuit also asserts that the legislation expanding the Obamacare Medicaid mandate violates state separation-of-powers doctrine.