PARTY OF NO

Tea Party Blocks Health-Care Implementation

Frustrating state lawmakers from both parties.

Hate the health-care law? The Tea Party has come up with a solution: block any implementation of health-care reform, much to the frustration of state lawmakers from both parties. “They’ve basically handed off the health exchange to the federal government,” said Montana Insurance Commissioner Monica Lindeen, a Democrat, about the Tea Party legislators who have managed to hamper the reforms. In Lindeen’s own state, for example, a Republican who ran on a Tea Party platform has blocked multiple health-exchange bills and has worked to create legislation that would specifically bar the state from setting up the health-care marketplace. According to the health-care bill, states must implement health-care reform by 2014, and if they do not have a system in place by 2013, the federal government will come in and put it in place themselves.