Everyone agrees ObamaCare will be a huge issue in the 2014 elections. In 2013, the General Assembly said NO to accepting federal money to set up a state health care exchange as part of ObamaCare’s implementation. We reported on Tillis telling business leaders around the state in private meetings, around that time, that it’s not about IF we get ObamaCare, but HOW we manage it.

Tillis took to Facebook to respond to critics — claiming he has always been against government health care exchanges. But a report today on The Daily Caller web site raises questions about that particular spin from Speaker Thom:

North Carolina Republican Senate hopeful Thom Tillis has been a very vocal critic of Obamacare, but when he was speaker of the state House, he helped bring a bill to the floor that would have created a state health care exchange. Tillis is a potential challenger to Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan, who is considered particularly vulnerable in November’s election. House Bill 115 was introduced in the state House in February of 2011 and was passed in May. It later died in the Senate. The bill would have created the North Carolina Health Benefit Exchange Authority, a state-based healthcare exchange where North Carolinians could purchase insurance, instead of having to use the federal website.

Here’s the information on that bill the article is discussing. Oh, look. Speaker Thom’s “mentor”, Harold Brubaker, is one of the primary sponsors. Here is the text.

Thank goodness for the state Senate. Incidentally, the 2013 move by the General Assembly to refuse the federal money to set up ObamaCare exchanges got its start in the Senate.