“Thanks to rural Coloradans, we here in Denver can live high on the hog”

PeakNation™, did you miss this Friday news dump?  The one where Colorado Insurance Commissoner, Marguerite Salazar (a Hickenlooper appointee), decided the best way to bring down healthcare costs for those poor, wretched souls who have to suffer living in Aspen and Vail is to group them with rural Coloradans on the Western Slope?  No?  Well, good thing we have The Associated Press reporter Kristen Wyatt keeping us informed:

Colorado has a plan to reduce health insurance premiums in the nation’s most expensive geographic zone.

The state Division of Insurance announced a proposal Friday to eliminate a mountainous zone dubbed the “Resort” region because it includes the ski resorts of Aspen and Vail. Instead, those four mountain counties would join other rural areas in western Colorado.

The change would reduce premiums slightly in Garfield, Eagle, Pitkin and Summit counties. But it would mean health insurance premiums on the individual market would go up slightly in other areas of western Colorado. [the Peak emphasis]

Rep. Jared Polis has made a habit about whining for the ski resorts, though it was he and his fellow Democrats who passed Obamacare that started this whole ludicrous exercise.  And, as we’re coming to learn, anytime it comes to a battle of wills between Polis and Hick, well, saying it’s a battle is being generous to Hick.  Luckily for Hick, he knows he can once again throw rural Coloradans under the bus.  How bad is the war on rural Coloradans?  He’s now even trying to specifically spin the media on it:

 

The day after trying to spin the media on rural Coloradans, Hick goes right back to tossing them under the bus.  Let’s make this clear, providing healthcare is no cheaper up in the resort towns now, they’ve just now foisted all those knee replacements and botox injections costs on to the farmer and ranchers who live along the Western Slope.  Nevermind that this tweet by Wyatt shows how arbitrary these lines really are:

 

With a swipe of Salazar’s pen, she could’ve grouped Aspen and Vail residents with those just down the road on I-70 in Denver, rather than the far-flung population center of Durango.  But, given the chance to make premiums go up for those in Denver or those all over western Colorado, Hick always knew who he was going to screw on this; we mean, it’s habit by now— after doing it for the past four years.

Hick definitely took a Friday news dump all over the rural Coloradans of western Colorado.