[UPDATED] Gerry Purcell Lies About Health Care Bill?

So says Stephen Northington, one of Purcell’s competitors in the race for the GOP nomination for State Insurance Commissioner.

Apparently, Purcell recently took credit for the health care proposal that State Senators Judson Hill and Chip Rogers introduced last month, claiming that they got the inspiration from something he claims to have done back in July. Given that they announced their bill on Sept 7, and Purcell claims to have originated the idea in July, it seems plausible… at first glance.

The problem is, Hill claims he was at a meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in April in Memphis when work on this bill first began – a claim that I have seen NO ONE dispute, and a claim I have no reason not to believe. Indeed, the resolution Hill’s bill is based on was adopted by ALEC’s Health and Human Services Task Force on May 1, and by the ALEC Board of Directors on June 6 – roughly a full month BEFORE Purcell claims to have originated the idea.

I’m still trying to talk to all of the players in this – I hope to talk to Northington and Purcell as well as Hill and Rogers on this issue – and I’ll update this post as I do.

After the jump, you will see both Northington’s press relase on the issue as well as the video Northington’s campaign uploaded with Purcell making the statement in question.

Candidate Gerry Purcell falsely claimed credit for health care bill written by Senator Judson Hill
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Athens-October 7, 2009

Stephen Northington calls on opponent to apologize for taking credit for senate health care protection bill.
Gerry Purcell tries to grab glory for health care bill written by State Senators Judson Hill and Chip Rogers.

Appearing in a candidate forum for Insurance Commissioner Candidates hosted by the University of Georgia College Republicans, Gerry Purcell falsely took credit for a bill introduced last month to protect Georgia’s citizens from a government takeover of health care. Purcell said the bill came out of a campaign prop he has been using to gather email addresses, but that is far from reality.
“I started writing this resolution back in April while at a American Legislative Exchange Council meeting in Memphis,” Hill said in a phone interview. “It is based on model legislation that the council wrote and it has been adopted by nine states so far. I took it to Chip and we went ahead and introduced it rather than waiting till the legislative session began.”
Purcell said in response to a question about consumer protection by the office of Insurance commissioner that the two senators got the idea from him.
“Back in July I was the first one in the state to introduce what’s called The Georgia Health Care Freedom Act, since then State Senator Judson Hill and Senator Chip Rogers have picked it up and they will introduce it in the senate in the next session.” Purcell claimed.

Northington is issuing a call for Purcell to retract and apologize for taking credit for the senators’ bill stating that it goes well beyond misspeaking.
“This is not some mild misrepresentation. This is taking credit for something you had absolutely nothing to do with. Where I come from that is called a lie and he needs to be held accountable. Health care reform is a critical issue facing this nation and Judson as well as Chip has worked tirelessly to bring common sense reform that I believe in to the state of Georgia. They deserve credit for this bill that will hopefully be passed this coming session.” Northington said.
This is apparently not the first time Purcell has done this according to Senator Hill who said he’s been hearing this kind of talk all over the state.
“At least he gave us credit this time. He’s been taking credit for this bill for some time now.” Hill said.
Northington, an insurance agent from Kennesaw and the only licensed professional in the race has been a very vocal opponent to government run health care. He was the organizer of the August free-market health care rally in Centennial Olympic Park that drew over 12,000 participants.
“We need to fix what is broken in health care while protecting what makes our system the best in the world. Judson’s bill rightly keeps control between the patient and the doctor with oversight at the closest level to the public as possible.” Northington said.
###

[UPDATE] Purcell’s campaign manager just told me that whether or not Hill and Rogers did this because Purcell began pushing it is “irrelevant” and that all credit for this should be go to Arizona with their Proposition 101. Purcell himself said that he took the Proposition 101 language and tweaked the language to fit Georgia. He says that he takes great care to say that he would introduce the bill, not that he authored it. He also says that he has two problems here: 1) Northington is losing badly in all polls so far, and this is nothing more than a semantic interpretation issue, 2) the wrong link (which is the same link I used, btw). Apparently, the link both the Northington campaign and I used was to an unrelated model bill, and this is the bill that Purcell derived his ideas from. Gerry also Northington says that he is the only licensed agent, yet there is a new candidate from Savannah that is also a licensed agent, and Purcell himself is a former licensed agent.