A funny thing happened on Tuesday: Colorado U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper reposted my Nov. 14 column — on both Facebook and X — criticizing his and Sen. Michael Bennet’s votes against reopening the government.

It’s always nice when a leading politician boosts my work. Alas, he didn’t have a change of heart over any of his votes. But by amplifying my critique, he sparked a backlash. On X, he got “ratio’d,” drawing 95 mostly negative comments compared to only 28 likes.

“I’ll save you the read,” Hickenlooper wrote above my post. “Working folks will soon see their premiums skyrocket by hundreds or thousands of $$$. We’re doing all we can to stop it.”

Then came the kicker: “The only ‘handouts’ here are the billionaire tax breaks Republicans funded by gutting health care,” he finished, adding another link to my column.

Oh, Hick. I thought you read the piece. As I wrote before: “Enough grandstanding already.”

First of all, this wasn’t about “gutting health care.” It was about funding and reopening the government. Only eight Democrats — excluding Hickenlooper and Bennet — voted for it.

This health care debate came down to an unrelated fight over something called the “enhanced premium tax credit,” a subsidy helping upper-middle-income earners afford outrageously expensive Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) plans.

When Democrats passed the tax credit in 2021, at the height of the pandemic, they set an expiration date of Dec. 31 of this year. It wasn’t President Trump or congressional Republicans who did that. It was President Biden and the Democrats. And it’s the only Obamacare subsidy set to expire.

These credits were meant to help people during the temporary pandemic emergency. If Democrats had wanted them to become a permanent entitlement, perhaps Hickenlooper and Bennet should have helped write the law that way in the first place.

“(This credit) is for a family of four making $128,000 or more — some making $200,000 or more,” said Republican U.S. Rep. Crank of Colorado Springs. “The EPTC is only a bandaid masking a large wound that is the ACA. To fix health care, we need to heal the wound, not replace the bandaid.”

This isn’t about other Obamacare subsidies. We’re talking about handouts for people with incomes above 400% of the poverty line, not the poor or indigent. Again, this one’s on Hickenlooper, Bennet and friends, who wanted Republicans to bail them out of a problem the Democrats created — allowing them to keep papering over the real costs of Obamacare.

Let’s be honest: Why are Republicans, who voted against the enhanced credit in the first place, expected to make permanent what Democrats alone passed during an emergency?

It’s costly, too. By 2024, as The Cato Institute’s Michael F. Cannon reminds us, Congress had already spent $694 billion on subsidies to take the edge off Obamacare premiums. “And it still isn’t affordable,” he says.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that, under current law, $1.3 trillion will be spent on premium subsidies over the next decade. Tack on another $500 billion if the “enhanced” subsidies for households earning up to $600,000 are made permanent.

Here’s what Hickenlooper definitely doesn’t want you to read: Patients don’t see a dime of this money. It goes straight to insurers — leaving taxpayers to foot the bill for ever-increasing premiums. In effect, he wants the feds to keep subsidizing insurance companies.

A report from the Paragon Health Institute finds that these massive Obamacare subsidies are padding corporate profits, not actually holding down costs. “These subsidies give insurers significant pricing power as the burden of premium increases over time is almost entirely borne by taxpayers,” the report found.

In other words: Higher premiums for individuals, subsidized by government, generating higher profits for insurers. No wonder Republicans are proposing to send health care dollars directly to price-conscious consumers instead.

When CNN asked whether the shutdown was worth it — given that Democrats walked away with nothing new — Hickenlooper’s answer was quick: “Yeah, I think so.”

“I hate it. But yeah, it was worth it. Definitely,” he continued. “We got people to pay attention to the fact that this is a traumatic, in many cases life and death situation all over this country.”

Let me get this straight: Hickenlooper (and Bennet) voted against reopening the government — so they could highlight how traumatic the shutdown was?

For decades, Democrats have carried the banners of “tax the rich” and “for the kids” to peddle all kinds of big-government policies. This time, Hickenlooper pushed a manufactured shutdown to promote subsidies for families earning up to $600,000 — and called it help for working folks. The hype and spin simply don’t match reality.

Hick doesn’t have to “save you the read” — the facts speak for themselves.

Jimmy Sengenberger is an investigative journalist, public speaker, and longtime local talk-radio host. Reach Jimmy online at Jimmysengenberger.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @SengCenter.