Earlier this year, Tennesseans were cheated by Republican controlled legislative committees that refused to allow the state’s General Assembly to even take a vote on Republican Gov. Bill Haslam’s negotiated health care program called Insure Tennessee. The problem was purely partisan politics – our super-majority Republican Legislature torpedoed Haslam’s custom Tennessee program because it would participate in the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
Never mind that Haslam’s plan would have helped nearly 300,000 low-income but working Tennesseans gain health insurance. And never mind that his plan would have infused Tennessee’s budget with a guaranteed $22.5 billion in federal tax dollars we’ve already paid to help Tennessee extend that help to our poor and working neighbors.
In coming legislative sessions, it appears the Tennessee GOP is eager to repeat its partisan and myopic dollars-and-cents denial.
Haslam has been speeding along on a 15-stop transportation funding tour this week, working to build public momentum for new transportation revenue. But his fellow GOPers in the state House and Senate are already slamming on the brakes. The word on the street is that this proposal faces a replay of the Insure Tennessee non-vote vote.
In other words, look for another legislative committee to throttle common-sense progress and throw it into a trash can without even a full General Assembly debate – much less a vote.