A tea party legislative candidate from Canyon County has become the target of national online derision, the Idaho Statesman’s Dan Popkey reports, after news surfaced that while he opposes Obamacare and will pay a penalty rather than participate, he has 10 kids on Medicaid, the government-funded health care program for the poor and disabled. "I attracted all the attention of all the people who hate Republicans and the tea party," Greg Collett, a 41-year-old freelance software developer and University of Idaho alum, told Popkey. "I've also attracted the attention of a lot of people in the liberty movement that don't want to see anybody on welfare." Things got so bad, Collett said, he had to clean up his Facebook account and remove contact information from his campaign website.

The two-time GOP legislative candidate, who’s planning to run again, made the news because he was one of 1,503 people who answered a Kaiser/NBC poll in September about attitudes about the Affordable Care Act, and he told the pollsters he'd be willing to talk to a reporter. He ended up as the first person quoted in an Oct. 4 NBC story, "Health care holdouts: uninsured but resisting." It went viral.

"I'm OK taking whatever I can from the government that's available to me,” Collett told Popkey. “I'm not going to lie and scam the system, but I'm OK with redirecting that money away from morally reprehensible things and direct it towards me." Popkey’s full report is online here, along with links to some of the national stories and Collett's online response.