Insurance Commissioner Salazar

What a tangled web the Colorado insurance industry is.  While reading an article about how frustrated some Colorado Exchange Board Members are with the exchange’s cost overruns, we came across an odd discovery – Division of Insurance Commissioner Margeurite Salazar’s husband Arnold Salazar is a new addition to the board.  Oddly enough, Margeurite Salazar also sits on the board as a non-voting member.

It’s a little weird.  And, by weird, we mean incestuous, perhaps a conflict of interest, definitely an appearance of impropriety.  Shall we go on?

Of course, this isn’t the first time Marguerite Salazar has been in hot water when it comes to insurance.  Marguerite Salazar was at the epicenter of the attempts by Team Udall to cover up the vast number of insurance cancellations earlier this year.  If you recall in January, Salazar was busted for being a little too cozy with Team Udall.  From our post at that time:

After DOI employee Jo Donlin sent the famous “I received a very hostile phone call from Sen. Udall’s deputy chief of staff” email, Alan Salazar, liberal Governor John Hickenlooper’s Chief Strategy Officer, replied “my former boss (Mr. Udall) – I was his COS and glad to weigh in if useful.”  Colorado Insurance Commissioner Marguerite Salazar then replied, “Everything is fine.  I spoke with the COS.  We all want the same thing.”  (See picture of email chain, left.)

To that, we have to ask, what was it that you all want?  Here are a few ideas that we had:

• They want this scandal to go away
• They want to revise downward the number of health insurance policies canceled due to Obamacare
• They want to protect Sen. Udall from the clear looming backlash his signature piece of legislation will unleash

With something as important as health insurance, Coloradans are looking for more transparency, not political gamesmanship.  Come on, Commish, enough with the shenanigans.