the bentley administration, the alabama legislature and the governor<u+2019>s alabama health insurance exchange study commission weighed many of the same issues their counterparts in other states did. how would they finance the exchange's operations? should a state agency or some other entity manage a new marketplace? how heavily should insurance companies be regulated? would it better for alabama to exert at least a little control over obamacare, or to just let the u.s. department of health and human services do the work?









if that was the case four years ago, no one told alabama state sen. jim mcclendon (r), a native english speaker who co-chaired bentley<u+2019>s commission while a member of the state house of representatives, which unanimously passed a bill in april 2012 to establish an alabama health insurance exchange.









 









 <u+201c>no. no. no. that was never, never brought up,<u+201d> mcclendon said in an interview with the huffington post last month. <u+201c>i was unaware of that stipulation in the affordable care act, and i would almost have to guess that anybody involved in this process was not aware of it. i was a little surprised when it came up eventually. nope. i was the chairman of the commission and i was totally unaware of that.<u+201d>









<u+201c>never. it was never discussed,<u+201d> said carey, who also worked with delaware and tennessee on their exchanges at the time, when he was a subcontractor working for lmi, a tysons, virginia-based government contractor. <u+201c>it was never a consideration that they weren<u+2019>t going to get subsidies if they deferred to the feds. i mean, i was there at every commission meeting and i was presenting, <u+2018>here are your options, here<u+2019>s what i think it might cost you,<u+2019> and we did those type of calculations."









i don<u+2019>t remember that coming up. i really don<u+2019>t. i really don<u+2019>t ever remember that ever being brought up as an issue... i don<u+2019>t ever remember anybody saying, <u+2018>well, if we do this and let the feds do it, this is the trade-off down the road'... i<u+2019>m almost positive somebody would<u+2019>ve brought it up... during the time, we didn<u+2019>t know that. after the commission, that<u+2019>s when all that stuff started coming out. we were like, <u+2018>oh, wait a minute.<u+2019> that could<u+2019>ve really changed, obviously, the advice to the governor, because i don<u+2019>t think he would<u+2019>ve even said we<u+2019>re not going to do it if it was clear at that point in time, all the way back four, five years ago, that if you don<u+2019>t do this, here<u+2019>s the side effect. because that<u+2019>s a huge trade-off.









wren was the author of the health insurance exchange bill the state house passed in april 2012, and he championed a state-run marketplace until bentley<u+2019>s final decision in december of that year to forgo a state exchange. wren told huffpost he still believes alabama should have its own exchange.









 









 wren claimed in an interview that he was aware, early on, of a provision in the law that would restrict subsidies to those who purchased coverage on state exchanges. but in a subsequent email, his account shifted. wren first said that issue came to his attention in 2009, before obamacare had even passed. in a subsequent email, he wrote that he had misspoken during the interview, and said he'd actually learned of this phrase in 2011.









 









 <u+201c>i believed at the time that for many reasons, including the possible favorable premium treatment to individuals purchasing from a state exchange, that alabama should consider this over a federal,<u+201d> he wrote.



















 greg wren, then a member of the alabama house of representatives, in 2011.









 









 there is little evidence to back wren's claim that he was aware of the now-controversial provision in obamacare during his state<u+2019>s debate over whether to establish an exchange. the former legislator could not offer an explanation for why his version of events differs from those of mcclendon and the others interviewed for this article, or why it isn<u+2019>t reflected in official documents or media accounts from the time.









 









 <u+201c>at this point i can only say is [sic] i remembered back as best i could,<u+201d> he wrote in an email.









wren also acknowledged that he has no documentation from 2010 through 2012 to support his assertions that he understood the phrase <u+201c>established by the state<u+201d> could mean that subsidies wouldn<u+2019>t be available in federal exchanges. the alabama legislature does not transcribe floor or committee proceedings, so no official record exists of the debate on wren<u+2019>s bill.









 









 wren was often quoted in the local and national press speaking about the advantages of state-run health insurance exchanges in 2011 and 2012, but huffpost couldn<u+2019>t find any articles that cited him saying the subsidies wouldn<u+2019>t be available in federal exchanges.
a case study on why the obamacare lawsuit is based on mythical history
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