Today’s vote in the Republican-controlled state Senate to require an audit of questionable health exchange spending and performance is a significant triumph towards bringing order out of the chaos that is our insurance system.

As an added benefit, senators also passed a bill requiring legislative approval when those health officials want to award themselves another lucrative bonus or hefty pay raise for a crappy job, done crappy.

To be fair, and we sometimes are, credit also goes to the handful of Democrats who sided with the GOP to pass the audit bill, which failed last year when Dems controlled the upper chamber.

Too bad those lawmakers turned a blind-eye as former exchange CEO Patty Fontneau wasted $32 million of taxpayer dollars on questionable practices and silly promotional gimmicks like bouncy fun houses.

Bouncy House

 

 

KUSA-TV reported that during Wednesday’s debate, Democrat Minority Leader Morgan Carroll argued against the audit, claiming government overreach.

Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Ellen Roberts of Durango stuck to the financial facts:

“In case anyone thinks this is just partisan bickering over something Republicans don’t like, look at the state auditor’s performance report.”

The audit bill was sponsored by Republican Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg and Democratic Sen. Cheri Jahn, and now goes to the House for consideration, where GOP Rep. Dan Nordberg sponsors it. Republican Sen. Larry Crowder sponsored the bonus and salary approval bill.