The Obama administration’s willingness to cut deals with Republican states as a way of getting them to cover more people under the Affordable Care Act has given Arizona’s conservative leaders the perfect opening to push for premiums and bigger copays on Medicaid members.

Arizona legislators advanced a budget deal struck by Senate and House leaders and Gov. Doug Ducey, but the bills won’t move any further unless GOP leadership can change the minds of more than a dozen rank-and-file members opposed to the spending plan.

A former leader of the Maricopa County Republican Party has equated a House representative who supported Arizona’s Medicaid expansion to the French women whose heads were shaved and paraded before the public following accusations of cavorting with German soldiers during World War II.

Republican lawmakers asked the Arizona Court of Appeals this afternoon to give them a chance to prove that hundreds of millions of dollars being used to support an expanded Medicaid program were illegally enacted.

Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid expansion got its first day in court as attorneys argued over whether 36 Republican lawmakers who opposed the plan have the right to sue over it.

According to the federal government, fewer than 750 Arizonans have signed up for health insurance under the federal marketplace created by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

Could have small impact on state government, big effect on Arizona economy

State agencies that rely heavily on federal funds won’t be affected much by the government shutdown, at least in the short term.

In a motion to dismiss the case, attorneys for Gov. Jan Brewer and the director of the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System contend 36 lawmakers who opposed Medicaid expansion don’t have standing to challenge the program in court.

Arizona has a rich history of sheltering its citizens from reckless tax increases. In 1992, voters passed Proposition 108, a constitutional guarantee to prevent abusive tax increases by requiring two-thirds of the Legislature to approve any new tax levies.

If conservative activists manage to refer Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid expansion plan to the ballot, their chances of getting voters to overturn it are grim, according to a new poll by the pro-expansion Restoring Arizona organization.