The campaign in Colorado to create the nation’s first state-based “single payer” health insurance system, providing universal coverage and replacing insurance premiums with higher taxes, has barely begun.
But business interests in Colorado are not taking anything for granted, and many of the largest lobbying groups around the country and in the state are raising funds to defeat Amendment 69, the single-payer ballot question going before voters this November.
The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers, a national trade group, is mobilizing its member companies to defeat single payer in Colorado. “The council urges Coloradans to protect employer-provided insurance and oppose Proposition 69,” the CIAB warns. The group dispatched Steptoe & Johnson, a lobbying firm it retains, to analyze the bill.
Lobby groups that represent major for-profit health care interests in Colorado, including hospitals and insurance brokers, are similarly mobilizing against Amendment 69. The Colorado Association of Commerce & Industry — a trade group led in part by HCA HealthOne, a subsidiary of HCA, one of the largest private hospital chains in the country — is soliciting funds to defeat single payer. The business coalition to defeat the measure also includes the state’s largest association of health insurance brokers.
The proposal calls for the Colorado legislature to pass new laws raising $25 billion a year from a mix of employer payroll taxes, a 3 percent tax on employee gross pay, and a new tax on self-employed net income. The money would be used for a new health care system that would cover all premiums and out-of-pocket costs for health and dental care. The state would also be charged with negotiating with providers and for better drug prices. Supporters of the plan say the system would save $4.5 billion a year.
I asked Sean Duffy, a spokesperson for “Coloradans for Coloradans,” an ad hoc coalition against the single-payer ballot measure, how the state should address high health care costs and those struggling to afford health insurance premiums.
“We are focused on sharing with Coloradans the numerous questions, ambiguities, and concerns with Amendment 69,” said Duffy. He noted that “motivations for universal coverage are shared by many in Colorado” but that making Colorado a “one-state experiment, and the cost of doubling our state budget, potentially diminishing the accessibility and quality of care and creating an unaccountable, massive bureaucracy is just not a good idea for Colorado.”
The U.S. is the only wealthy nation without a publicly financed universal health care system — and spends far more than every other industrialized nation on health care costs. America also has one of the highest infant mortality rates of countries ranked by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Patients using Medicare, the single-payer program for the elderly set up by President Lyndon Johnson, consistently tell pollsters that they prefer Medicare over private insurance. But expanding the system has proven difficult over industry opposition. Profit-driven health care industries and professional medical societies have blocked cost-saving reforms for decades, and in recent years, spent tens of millions of dollars to shape the outcome of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. The health insurance industry in particular lobbied aggressively to shape public opinion and block proposals to expand single payer over the last decade.
As other states consider proposals to lower costs and expand coverage, health care interests keen to protect some of the largest profit margins in the economy will be sure to mobilize quickly to snuff them out.
A single payer healthcare system would be the way to go if it were supported by premiums instead of taxes. ColoradoCare is supported by taxes. As the cost goes up the government refuses to raise taxes. There is no solution except to curtail cost by causing scarcity, rationing, reduced services, inferior equipment and inadequate staffing. Look at Canada. I practiced medicine there for 38 years and have written two books about it. If you want to see unbelievable suffering and countless preventable deaths you should vote for a tax-supported proposal like ColoradoCare.
Excellent comment, Dr. Krahn. Thank you.
How does a system supported by premiums work? And why are costs going up? They should be going down.
so why dont you post my comments they are the truth is that why you theifs
sorry but every buddy should look at amendment 16 about taxes we have been paying all these yaers when you work at your job that is a trade you dont pay taxes on trades i work you pay thats it and the goverment dont have money they should not spend our money like they think it theres
You don’t like it move somewhere else. People like you refuse to pay your fair share for healthcare and then you let everyone else foot the bill when you get sick. No! You will pay your fair share in taxes and get universal health care and if not then you can move to some backward conservative state like Texas.
This Colorado Care should be unconstitutional. It conscripts all doctors into servitude to the government. No doctor can manage his practice and make arrangements with his patients without the government directing what he can charge and receive.
I encourage all Coloradans to say a powerful NO to this horrible intrusion into private lives.
You need to research what you are talking about. I recommend you visit http://coloradocareyes.co/ and educate yourself.
You are sorely mistaken, Randy. If I want to pay my private doctor $200 and the collective only allows him to charge me $100, then they have consripted my doctor. I recommend you visit that site and educate yourself as well.
“(5) A PROVIDER MAY NOT REQUIRE A BENEFICIARY TO MAKE A COPAYMENT OR SUBMIT TO ANY OTHER COST-SHARING ARRANGEMENT WITHOUT COLORADO C ARE ’S APPROVAL.
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Liz, isn’t that what health insurance companies do now? They set the reasonable and customary price points and they negotiate what they will pay doctors. How is that different?
Thank you Silvia for pointing out what Liz is trying to fool everyone with. If you substitute Colorado Care with the term “your current health care provider” everything she says is still true.
See Liz is trying to make it sound like this removes doctors freedom to charge what they want. That’s true, what she is leaving out is your current HMO already does this…. and she knows that.
She is trying to use double-speak to convince you she is trying to protect you, she is only concerned with doctor & insurance company profits.
Why else would she purposely try to deceive you through mis-information?
I employ my own doctor and pay him a mutually-agreed amount. I reserve insurance for unexpected items. The reason insurance is so expensive is that it is not “insurance. Under this leftist scheme. it will be illegal for my doctor and I to maintain a private payment agreement.
Hillary Clinton just spent $1M to have people go online and smear Bernie Sanders on comment forums and spread mistruths about his platform. I suspect the lobbying groups are doing the same and Lis here is just one of their paid online trolls.
Spoken like a true shill for the insurance lobby. People can still get private insurance on the open market in a universal healthcare system. Don’t lie to the public.
Coloradans are impressive. I hope this bill passes!
Lora, it is not a bill. It is a constitutional amendment and laws that may need changes should never be put in the constitution. Learn your civics!
Colorado has a history of successful initiatives. Here is how ColoradoCare would work: Health insurance would be in place for every Colorado resident, with those receiving insurance through ColoradoCare being able to choose any provider (no narrow networks defined by present insurance companies), no deductible. Employers would be freed up from choosing specific health insurance policies for their employees, a simple payroll tax of 6.67% would cover both part-time and full-time employees. Employees would kick-in 3.3% of their W-2 wages. For example a family of 3, which has an income of $50,000 a year would pay $138 per month. Savings come from cutting out most of the waste in billing & insurance company overhead that studies show ranges from 20-30% of each health insurance dollar presently. ColoradoCare would be run by an elected board of 21 by Coloradoans – free the politics of the governor and legislator. The sky was supposed to fall in after we legalized, taxed and regulated cannabis – I have news as a life long Coloradoan it did not. The Health Insurance industry has had its chance to bring universal coverage, control costs and provide universal coverage and access – it has failed, so it is time to move on.
You really think it is going to be that easy to just snuff out single payer health care? I do not. They may slow us down a bit, but universal health care is probably something that, in the long run, just cannot be stopped from happening. This is especially true if the costs turn out to be way lower for nations and people to afford. It is as inevitable as green energy if we can survive what we are doing to our health via our present health care fiasco!
Democrats gave us our current health care fiasco. So we should then trust them to give us another?
I think Colorado is the perfect state for a successful universal healthcare system. It is has a mid-sized and relatively young population (33.7 median vs 37.2 nationally), and has the lowest obesity rate in the country (21.3% vs 35.7% nationally). Because it is a younger and healthier population, Colorado has the potential to save significant amounts of money by shifting to a state-oriented system.
The question is can the citizens of Colorado defeat the powerful for profit health insurance lobbies that will try and convince the people to vote against their own self interests once again as they have done successfully over the past several decades. “The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers” is another powerful organization that will try and keep the money towards the health insurance industry vs the citizens of Colorado.
The questions is whether Coloradans value their freedom and liberty enough to keep the leftist cronies from taking over the most private part of their lives.
It is easy to see how threatened the for profit “health-care” system is, which is really a disease care system that is not interested in the health of participants at all, just their profits. They all profit from the calamitous state of the populace, with increasing disease, rampant obesity, skyrocketing diabetes, etc, etc. The insurance industry profits, the doctors profit, the drug companies profit, the hospitals profit, that is, as long as people continue their path to greater sickness. What is the incentive to motivate people to take responsibility for their own health if the system profits from their continuing to be sick? Until this greedy system is broken down and fundamentally changed, we will continue to pay not only with money, but with our health.
I sympathize with the idea of single payer, it’s a grand notion of “solidarity”. However, in practice it quite literally, hurts everyone. I live in Canada, we have a so called single payer system. Try getting any serious testing or surgery done here, unless it’s immediately life threatening, get in line. Do you enjoy standing in line for 3 hours for a roller coaster? Well, you’ll wait a lot longer for anything the “single payer” actually has to do. Now, there are problems inherent in said system, much like the quasi private system today. Once a public sector is formed politicians become completely beholden to it, much like teachers unions which extract vast pension and retirement funds from the public, the reasoning is always about “the children” or in this case about “the sick”. It’s all drivel, these are self interested people just like you and I, that care not about the “unwashed masses”, there may be the odd exception to this rule, but almost inevitably, people care about one thing, themselves! Sure I like the idea of single payer in theory, but it simply works poorly in practice, it just becomes another .gov protected fiefdom, that eats more out of your pay cheque. Not to say the current circumstances are good, ACA is a crony capitalist wet dream, and insurance and health industries lobby a corrupt government in the USA, reaping the benefits of a powerful central state at the expense of everyone. Proper health care, in a free market aka what the US had before self interested citizens voted themselves Medicare, was local and much cheaper. But people remember nothing and forget everything today, nobody was dying on the street in the past before govt got involved, but this doesn’t fit our narrative, perhaps it’s a micro aggression, the horror!!!
A proper free market is usually the solution, strict regulation like the hypocratic oath is more than fair, gmp for tools, and standards and testing for procedures are more than reasonable things for govt to have a part in. Or we can continue to march down the path of quasi socialism, with the end goal of socialists being just that, deciding how much freedom you get, and how much of your wallet they control. A great mind, which may be of interest to some of you, Tomas Sowell, a former Marxist, worked briefly for .gov and is now a staunch free market advocate, and for good reason. He sees the corrupt and self interested notions intertwined with the supposed utopian goal of more govt. I always find it amusing that most people dislike govt, and with good reason, but when it comes to voting for a free lunch, suddenly it’s a higher intellectual ideal, or a moral good. It’s always been hogwash, and it always will be.
Well, Hello “Dave”, or whatever your real name is. Glad to see you doing your job as a corporate health care industry shill.
Let Colorado voters make their own decisions.
Dave, We know the Canadian system makes patients line up for non-urgent surgeries–but most Americans would be glad to wait their turn if it meant no worry about paying a medical bill, no deductible, no 20 % co-insurance on a lengthy hospital stay, no fear of losing coverage if you change your job, or become unemployed. As the economist Jos Stiglitz has said–the market doesn’t work in health care.
The market works beautifully. I pay my doctor cash and buy my prescriptions with a discount card.
The market works beautifully? For the providers and the rich perhaps, given the high cost we pay for health services compared to many first world nations. To assert it works beautifully for the average citizen is absurd, irrespective of your single experience.
A proper free market is usually the solution, strict regulation like the hypocratic oath is more than fair,
You mean the for profit system the U.S. already has that fails all the ideals of a free market? Service hasn’t gotten cheaper in the ensuing decades of American health policy. There isn’t more available either.
Please tell us all about this magic deregulation that increases participation.
I know Canadians and they will disagree with Dave all day and night. I wait in the US for healthcare. I get to pay a health insurance corporation about 60% more then the average Canadian pays per year in taxes for healthcare. The main difference is, in the US my expensive health insurance makes me pay thousands in deductibles anytime I want to get medical services, and I still have to pay copay’s and pay for whatever my health insurance decides not to cover. In Canada, you can pretty much have anything done and you don’t get a bill. Colorado single payer is simply about cutting out the US for-profit health insurance middleman. Any conservative would be for that….
As healthcare costs continue to increase, citizen initiated proposals for state-run health insurances should start popping up at increased rates — in Colorado and in other states. But how those state-run agencies are funded will determine the quality of care we get in return.
I cannot help but notice how the continuous consolidation of health insurance companies eventually resulted in a monopoly composed of two, maybe three, coordinating companies — in nearly every state in U.S. The monopolies abuse the consumer’s lack of options by charging them exorbitant prices, while delivering poor quality services. High deductibles, high premiums, and increasing complexity of coverage exceptions are all ‘smells’ of a monopoly.
Naturally, such behavior angers many citizens, eventually motivating a critical mass of people to politically organize and push for a replacement, state-run system.
The resulting system would replace an existing monopoly-controlled, for-profit bureaucracy with a self-preserving, but otherwise unmotivated, state bureaucracy.
But, is that what we want?
Seems that someone who just wants to get to Friday sooner is preferable over someone who’s bonus depends on denying your claim.
I shudder when I think of going to the DMV or the courthouse, and the image of a sloth from Zootopia denying my doctor’s claim due to a technicality seems like a nightmare.
But if the state-run system does not ban private insurances, and citizens get a choice of private or state-run insurance, then we would get something like the US Post office. USPS is not the only game in town and it still has to compete with FedEx and UPS. And no, USPS does not get funded via taxes, but via postage, which citizens chose to pay when choosing USPS over FedEx or UPS.
The Proposition 69 is a response to the health insurance company monopoly, but funding it via mandatory taxes will create a bureaucracy closer to the DMV model. If residents were required to get health insurance, and the state-run insurance was *one* of the options, we would get something closer to the Post Office, and not DMV.
What’s better for you? DMV, US Post Office, or a Corporate Monopoly? Those appear to be our choices.
Colorado let’s bring it on. We paved the way for MJ lets do it for health care.
I have employee provided health insurance. Between my premiums and what my employer pays on my behalf, the health insurance industry extracts $14,400 a year from my family alone. Last year my son broke his arm. The doctor said they see three breaks a day like this as it is a common injury.
After surgery and doctors visits, the entire bill for this broken arm was over $20,000. This included an additional $3,000 out of pocket in addition to health insurance premiums paid for over 25 years with nominal healthcare use over those 25 years. This broken arm cost more than my son’s birth eight years ago which included a week a half stay in the hospital due to complications. Out of pocket for that? $0.00.
This is a broken, greedy, criminal system that needs to be fixed. The healthcare industry’s worst nightmare is upon them: an educated and fed up public. Spend money on lobbyists and paying off politicians OR fix your industry and provide a service at a competitive cost.
THAT is competitive capitalism, not the corporate socialism which is being waged upon the public now.
Well said. In my economic classes, it was called a monopolization of the industry. They have no need to compete because it is the law to have insurance. Whether one can afgord it or not, it is mandatory. So, now we have to pay taxes and insurance and die as the mandatory requirements to be an American citizens. When was it figured out that in a free country, one has to pay to live as a legal citizen?
I’m betting that $20,000 was nowhere near what actually got paid.
” creating an unaccountable, massive bureaucracy is just not a good idea” – don’t we already have that and it’s called the health insurance industry?
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
*snip*
“The council urges Coloradans to protect employer-provided insurance and oppose Proposition 69,” the CIAB warns.
*end snip*
assuming first of all, that people even HAVE employer-provided health insurance, which many don’t.
the have-nots are not going to support the health insurance industry that they get no benefit from, bcs their employers already DON’T offer health insurance.
2nd, assuming that those that get employer-provided health insurance…are happy with their insurance…which they are NOT!
in light of employees havving to pay higher premiums, higher deductibles, only to get lower coverages and less authorisations of payments…
along with the monopoly that workers’ can’t shop around for coverages they want/need for their own situations…
and that employer-provided healthcare disappears *poof* if you get laid off, or the company goes bankrupt, or you get disabled and can’t work, or if you resign to take a different job that may or may not provide insurance, or get fired with or without cause…
Oh of course, COBRA, which charges hundreds PER MONTH for insurance that even denies claims and doesn’t pay out…
There are plenty of workers who get screwed over by both their employers AND the health insurance companies – that would be quite happy to overthrow the existing employer-provided system that protects monopoly profits and eliminates employee choice…
LOL
well duh!
Sounds good to me! Marijuana can probably pay for it.
Dope taxes won’t come even close. It is a flat additional 10% tax. It destroys freedom and liberty.
This probably has a good chance of passing right? Especially since Bernie won Colorado.
Ummm… You do realize the patients using Medicare prefer it because it’s free to them, right?
Ummm . . . you probably need to do more research on Medicare.
I’ll save Atlas the trouble: Medicare Part A is the only free part of Medicare, and it covers very little. Medicare Part B, which you need to cover hospitalization and the more expensive services, is paid-for unless your total household income is less than about $26,000. Since Medicare Part D, the one for medications, includes a non-negotiation on price clause, seniors also have to pay co-pays drugs that are sold to them at the highest market price. And then there’s the “recommended” Medicare Advantage supplemental insurance to make sure EVERYTHING is actually covered.
Part A, the “free” piece of Medicare, is the hospital insurance. Part B, whose premiums are charged based on income, is medical insurance for doctor visits, etc. That is my understanding of how Medicare works. So what is the “very little” that part A covers according to your analysis?
Medicare costs $16,000 a year, has a 50% higher utilization rate, adjusted for age and health, and will be broke in a few short years.
We need initiatives like this across the country. The ACA helped make a dent in the number of uninsured by expanding Medicaid, but it can hardly be considered a solution to the problems of the healthcare system. Everyone deserves medical coverage, and Medicaid is pitiful. My practice gets $16 for an office visit from Medicaid HMOs. It’s no wonder I can never find specialists who accept Medicaid to see my patients. We urgently need single payer (Medicare) for all, especially the poor.
Doc, you want your labor conscripted? You want government telling you what you can charge? What if they tell you that $16 is enough? Will you leave the state?
If your average employer could rid themselves of employer provided health care then why wouldn’t they?
Sure you pay more taxes but is that not a wash?
Not to mention the massive profits of the people who keep us alive. You realize if it was cheaper to let us die then they probably would.
The ‘ health for profit ‘ industry must be considered one of the worst parts of America. Their Hippocratic oath apparently does not consider the awful wake of bankruptcies and financial ruin.
We can change that but we can’t get conservatives to understand that good healthcare is ‘THE’ measure of a functioning democracy? Unbelievable.
If you want horror stories about what it’s like to poor and sick then you needn’t go far. Including me.
You realize if it was cheaper to let us die then they probably would.
THEY ALREADY DID.
The pricing of healthcare BEFORE OBAMACARE was such that the more who died the better as long as the population did not revolt. Not kidding. That is how they priced it.
What more needs to be said than this absolute truth:
“Profit-driven health care industries and professional medical societies have blocked cost-saving reforms for decades”
The so called “health care” industry does not care about your health.
The do care about what is in your pocket.
DO IT SINGLE PAY!
If a fund were set up to help get the word out on a nationwide scale to fight back against the lobbyists, I’d be willing to donate and I’m on the east coast. I’d love to see Colorado pass this to show the rest of the country it can be done.
Yes this is HUGE. We need it! We must break the stranglehold the corporations have on healthcard. COLORADO can LEAD the Way!!
For corporations to hire lobbyists to oppose what the people want, should be criminal.
Yet not everyone wants it…
People need security. Insurance corporations want profits.
It all will depend on the people’s vote and their ability to be “allowed” to see where their best interests lay.
Beyond that there are the other actors. Hospitals, doctors, care providers must also be convinced. Until now their payday has been guaranteed by the insurers. They are worried about their profits too and if they’ll be paid as before.
Then comes big Pharma and they will do/say anything to keep their stranglehold on America. An epic fight lies ahead.
I can just see Republicans wetting their panties over this. First they smoke the pot, they they want their socialized Health Care. lol
Citizens of Colorado put Amendment 69, ColoradoCare on the November ballot. If passed, ColoradoCare will replace Obama Care and provide healthcare coverage for every resident of Colorado. It will be funded by 3.3% individual payroll tax and 6.7% employer payroll tax.
The industries most affected by ColoradoCare will be pharmaceuticals, hospitals, and healthcare insurance companies; all big time campaign donors and most traded on Wall street. We spend 36 billion that goes to them. It is at stake,
Few politicians will support ColoradoCare. We should pay attention to the ones that do. They truly work for the people. After all, ColoradoCare is a citizens initiative. Many of the politicians against it may very well be looking at their next campaign finance drive. With 36 billion spent on health care by Coloradans, these industries will produce a firestorm of negative ads and misinformation in an attempt to dummy us down. You and I, regular citizens, do not have pockets deep enough nor stuffed enough with greenbacks generated through greed and profit to buy politicians or adds created to induce fear, misinformation, culturally induced ignorance, and doubt; agnotology.
We will hear it all such as socialism, all the doctors will leave Colorado, we will have to go out of state for health care, moral outrage, have to go over state lines to get health care. It is all out there already. Agnotolgy is alive and well.
There are three main arguments against ColoradoCare.
One, the government doesn’t do anything right and business is more efficient.
Two, the tax will nearly equal the entire state budget.
Three, we want to preserve free market healthcare and government is not free-market healthcare.
One, the government doesn’t do anything right and business is more efficient.
Wall street caused the 2008 financial collapse. Our healthcare is tied to CEO bonuses, stock options, and return on investment; or in other words greed and profit. Does that sound like healthy healthcare? If yes I got some healthcare credit default swaps to sell ya.
The government saved the entire financial system from collapse after corporations, banks, and Wall street entrepreneurs drove the entire worldwide economy into the dirt simply for greed and profit. Lacking depth of character, shallow morals long past abandoned, ethics in the shadows we paid. Now they want us to believe that our health sold as for profit stocks is going to make us healthier.
Two, the tax will nearly equal the state budget. The ColoradoCare tax is not a general tax and will not be part of the Colorado general fund. Lawmakers do not manage it as they do the general fund. It is set aside specifically for healthcare; nothing else. Coloradans spend 36 billion a year in healthcare and healthcare outpaces the rate of general inflation by nearly six times. Further, our mountain communities have the most expensive healthcare in the country. After a few years that adds up; 300% compared to 50%.
Currently, Coloradans pay around $700 a month in premiums and often much more in terms of out of pocket expenses, co-pays, uncovered expenses and a percentage of bills and procedures. Based on the average household income, the average Coloradan will pay about $1200 a year, total. That kind of savings would pay the mortgage of many Coloradans, put people in a position to buy a home or send a kid to college. That would be an incredible economic stimulus. The 36 billion Coloradans pay in health care (much of which goes out of state) is low fruit compared to the 26 billion state budget or 6 billion we spend on education. At 36 billion there is a lot of greed and profit. Projections indicate ColoradCare will trim around 4 billion off that 36 billion and as efficiencies and integrations rise perhaps more, much more.
Three, we want to preserve free market healthcare and government is not free-market healthcare. Let’s be clear, in a free-market people know the price as it is disclosed, people shop, and that brings down price. In healthcare, we don’t. End of story.
For free markets to work price must be disclosed prior to the routine service, exam, surgery, or visit otherwise competition is non-existent and prices rise.
I cannot think of a single example of a free market system where price is not disclosed, choices are limited, no one shops, billing is complex, charge master’s determine price by some magical formula that makes a latex glove 20 bucks, and lacking competitive price disclosure, prices far exceed inflation. Free-market? Really? Give me a break.
Healthcare is closer to market hocus pocus; watch me pull a medical bill out of a hat. There is no competition. How can there be when no one knows the price and it is not disclosed?
I am not sure what magic they used to create the healthcare market but it is not a free-market system by any stretch of the imagination and quite simply, that is why it cost so darn much.
In the end, after the multi-million dollar campaign of agnotology, fear and opinion masquerading as fact subside. Colorado may actually become a place where many healthcare professionals will want to practice medicine and Coloradans will pay significantly less than the rest of the country for health care and have a highly integrated system to deliver healthcare.
ColoradoCare, simple, just like thhe Colorado we are all looking for.
ColoradoCare, simple, much like the Colorado we all hope to find.
decades ago, many, the u.s. used to have public hospitals which were quite affordable. I think they were run by the counties. Health care was once not such a problem. I do not know what happened to them.
Amen!! I hope you’re able to get it passed. Would love to see TexasCare come to our state.
If you get sick and have a string of odd surgeries lined up don’t plan on single payer to get it done. Medicine is far more complicated than single payer. It will fail for everyone and restrict new directions and surgeries being advocated by surgeons all based on Medicare pay. It won’t work and it’s a horrible idea. The poor have choices now and they can feed into the system. I’m paying 200 a month more than I did before Obama care and I have a bigger deductabke that’s because everyone is now included. Take the single payer for young people to cover for the elderly and it will be unfair to them and catastrophic.
That’s all standard boilerplate for why single-payer won’t work. Please provide verifiable sources for the contention that any of that will happen. Alleged scare stories cherrypicked from countries with national health services will not be accepted.
You’re paying more and your deductible is higher because the insurance company you’re paying is determined to pay its executives obscene salaries and bonuses, make sure shareholders continue to get a fat return, and (in some cases) to either buy back stock or pay down loans taken out to do so.
horsewiki. The prices for health care will come tumbling down and the insurance price monopoly will begin collapsing and the executives will be out looking for jobs. The employees will still work in the admin. It will be very nice to see the execs pounding the street.
We Coloradans are about to take Amendmebt 69 and show the rest of the nation that universal Heath care not single payer can work.
Check out coloradocareyes.co for info and to donate. We are going to need everyone who cares about universal health care to help out knocking on doors making call and donating to fight the good fight
Coloradocare was designed by Coloradans for Coloradans. It’ll cover everyone and save us billions. You’re damn right
THIS IS HUGE.
This move to establish a single payer health system in the state goes to the core of American Democracy and consitutes a threat to predatory capitalism.
Health care for everyone and save 4.5B a year? Sounds good. The monopoly player, HCA, is painting the issue as a threat to any and every single person while masking another issue concerning their profits. Both these HCA issues mask the real issue.
Just how does a single payer differ from what already exists in Colorado today? Not much. The argument that HCA is making against saving $4.5 Billion a year is not going to reduce the hospitals or doctors. From the visible perspective nothing changes. It’s that “not much” that is the issue and that issue is a matter of kind, not amount. HCA would still exist. So what is the problem?
Self sufficiency. The money in a single payer system recirculates within the state. Price determinations become a local economics issue because taxation for price is tied to affordability, actual income, not manufactured indebtedness. Yet this is not enough to kill off the medical health care business in Colorado at all.
Insurance Company Monopoly. A single payer system is a threatens the need to the insurance monopoly because it removes the insurance players from the board. The insurance industry has packaged health care providers into marketable bundles. They get a guaranteed 15% – 20%. Single payer takes that away. Still, the insurance companies can easily take up residence in the state and perform administrative managment for reasonable profit. That would be an opportunity to embrace, not a time to oppose. So why the panic?
The Wallstreet nuke that threatens America is their blackjack hole card, a ghost with power which they use as to bully Amnericans into negotiating with themselves. It’s the boogieman that can take their jobs, their homes, and their rights. In this manner of owner of life support, Wallstreet inc. manufactures a dependency relationship. Wallstreet inc. used that power to foster a war, falsify home values, steal homes, rob investors and crash the economy – for a profit! It is so powerful that mitch mcconnel used it to extort concessions from Americans or he would sink the government. And Americans have been so abused for so long they no longer feel the brick hitting them upside their head.
But the real threat of the single payer system is really a threat to wallstreet and wallstreet’s mother – the Private Federal Reserve, inc. together operating as Wallstreet inc. Wallstreet inc. thrives on their ownership of the u.s. economy in every respect. Wallstreet inc. is like an insect colony. America is their feeding ground. Corporations are inhabited at the top by some really craven souls who disdain public life and these creatures life together in their virtual critter colony goes goes on “red alert” when their way of life is threatened. The Colorado proposal for a single payer system has triggered that alert and it is reverberating thru their colony as ants under attack.
A matter of OWNERSHIP and SELF DESTINY. A change to that relationship whereby Wallstreet inc is dependent on, or works for Americans, as opposed to the other way around that exists now, is an existential threat to them because it removes their leverage of power over America. The single payer system is the threat of all threats to Wallstreet inc. because it goes to the food supply itself and the right of the living to live. Think about that……… If a person were to begin starving, where would they end up? The hospital. A single payer system would then allow that person to obtain the remedy for the condition, nutrition. Suddenly the guarantee of food for life is in play. That right to food is the same demand made by Jesus, loaves and fishes.
Revolt? Essentially, this move by the people of colorado is effectively a revolt, it re-assembles the union of all citizens and gives back ownership of life and self destiny back to the people that live where they live. No longer would Wallstreet inc. be able to threaten the lives of Americans or institute policies that enforce American lives as expendable. Removing that nuke option from Wallstreet inc. flips their dependency relationship on it’s head and re-installs the Declaration of Independence of Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness.
But Wallstreet inc. case of paranoia is without reason. Ensuring the nutrition or food supply as a guarantee to human life is not socialism. It’s human. The mechanism of providing that guarantee is socialistic. And it’s good in a biblical sense. What Wallstreet inc. is unwilling to accept, like Muomar Ghaddafi, Mubarek, and others, is being deposed as a predatory ruler over America. They are so blinded by greed, they cannot even see the values of socialistic life support for an economy that can actually support reasonable capitalism.
Power to the people. Who works for who? Do we the people work for corporations or do corporations work for us the people? Does life support belong to Wallstreet inc. or does it belong to the people? Who calls the shots? Who has the power? This Colorado Single Payer offer is the definitive recognition of the type of socialism that Bernie Sanders favors AND… it means moreover that the dependency of LIFE SUPPORT will be withdraw from wallstreet pirateers and RETURNED to TO THE PEOPLE.
THIS IS HUGE.
Yes, +1+1+1 Agree!!!!!!!!
I love Colorado’s Constitution making voter initiated amendments like the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) or 2012’s cannabis legalization possible, in spite of corrupt legislature / law enforcement objections. And you’re right this one’s HUGE. Bonus, another new law here a couple years back is that for every election EVERY voter in the state is mailed an official ballot weeks early, and you can just drop it off at one of the statewide collection boxes right up until election day. No long lines and voters here feel empowered. The true death-panel profiteers will be throwing tons of money at frightening people, trying to stop single-payer, and probably still fail. It’ll be something to watch, that’s for sure.
What the insurance corporations and other businesses that are in health care for “profit” are REALLY worried about is that if ColoradoCare passes and succeeds as a business model on how to deliver health care WITHOUT profit, then other states will quickly say, “We’ll have what they’re having.”
If Colorado sneezes on this one, the rest of the country will catch the cold. And THIS is what the big corporations are worried about.
Really hope it passes and succeeds!
I will revolt when you leftists tell me what medical care I can have and my doctor will revolt when you try to conscript his labor. We’re both outta’ here – and taking our taxes with us.
Yes, please lead the great flight of Coloradans who will no longer stand to live in this terrible place!
The single payer option is the crucifix our vampire greed ridden healthcare system cannot endure as it weakens their blood sucking power over the masses. The vampires that profit from suffering fear that a single payer option, war on obscene Pharma profits, and a sense of awakened morality could form a stake that could be thrust in to the vampire’s heart fixing them to a coffin for eternity.
It was mentioned in the article “The council urges Coloradans to protect employer-provided insurance…” What an absurd suggestion as our courts have actually ruled in modern cases that corporations can exist solely for profit, so why would anyone want the healthcare of themselves and their loved ones entrusted to the sycophants of the corporatocracy. And do not say employers have to give proper healthcare to their employees to be competitive because they don’t.
nicely put! love the crucifix in the vampire analogy. beginning of the end of rapacious capitalism.
Dear Fellow,
Trying to force your fellow citizens into your leftist scheme and forcing doctors to work for what you say is correct, is the epitome of greed. If you all want a nice “cooperative,” why not make a non-mandatory system? Are you afraid too many will reject it?
Why would anyone entrust a gang of leftist cronies and why would anyone vote away his healthcare freedom?
Wow, thank you for your reply I rarely get one that immediately proves without my having to reply how wacky a comment it is as you cannot be leftist if your assertions are what the overwhelming majority of what people actually want.
And as far as “giving up your freedom” no body buys that propaganda. Freedom to do what? Live with a healthcare system that will eventually bankrupt so many innocent people, or take what little a person might want to leave his family away after they die to pay off vastly inflated costs compared to the rest of the civilized world’s healthcare systems.
One is not “leftist” if one supports what the overwhelming majority of the people want.
And as far as “voting away his healthcare freedom” nobody buys that propaganda as that trick only worked once and has had its day.
“Freedom to do what”: live with a healthcare system that leaves so many still under or not covered at all? Live with a healthcare system that will eventually bankrupt so any innocent people? Live with a healthcare system that will take away what little people have to leave to their families to pay off vastly inflated healthcare costs compared to the rest of the civilized world’s healthcare systems?
**** Appointed Lynne to LT. Govenor because Hick has made it clear he would accept a position in the Clinton administration if asked.
Please email me if you need any investigating done. I’d love to try.
Recently, Govenor John Hickenlooper has appointed Donna Lynne, executive VP of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, INC. and Hospitals and group president of Kaiser Permanente Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington. Both Hick & Lynne are avid Clinton supporters.
Please dig deeper into THAT.
If this wasn’t pathetic it would be hysterical. Did you idiots not see what happened in Vermont? But like typical Commie doltsyou’ll say “but this time it will work.” Newsflash….it doesn’t work. Anywhere. Ever. Health coverage is far different than actual healthcare. You can’t pay for it so why even bother? All of you idiot burnouts who came for the legal weed should head back to California…the state that you screwed up first.
Hats off to you Colorado voters! Lead the way, just as you did with Cannabis. Keep blazing those trails.
I literally laughed reading this line “The council urges Coloradans to protect employer-provided insurance and oppose Proposition 69″.
As if business wants to continue bearing the burden and cost of providing health care plans! Protect it for who? I’ve always helped provide our people with the best healthcare possible, but the irony of that statement is is breathtaking.
Business does not want the cost/burden of providing health insurance. These brokers and their cronies can’t spin that pile of horseshit around here.
They may have to do some quick finagling. Increase the number of doctors and create a Super-Nurse professional. An experienced nurse using modern diagnostic equipment can equal most doctors.
The technology has been suppressed by the medical industry for decades
https://news.microsoft.com/2004/01/21/medical-diagnostic-and-treatment-software-holds-potential-to-save-lives-and-improve-patient-care-worldwide/
Hence the new category of PA. Physician Assistant.
Hey America, keep socialism out of your third world country! Use your big gun and your small hands. You should be free to pay as much as you want for healthcare and to vote for the president your oligarchs tells you to.
it is not socialism it is a way to provide decent health care to all the people and take the monopoly away from insurance company’s and pharmaceutical mfg.
How do you know it will be decent healthcare? How do you know it won’t be dirty, dingy hallways, long lines and shortages? How do you know doctors won’t leave this state when they’re conscripted? How do you know taxpayers won’t get the he!! out and take their tax dollars with them?
Answer: You don’t.
How many times will it take for socialist regimes taking over to prove to you that state control causes shortages and inferior quality?
Answer: Feel the Burn.
And also, stop purchasing or selling arms to and from Canada. I can’t help but think that’s offensively ironic.
@Pedinska – not only are they hoist on their own petard about employer health care – they’ve put themselves in this position by making it so hard for insurers to cross state boundaries and compete in other markets. If state boundaries were just lines on a map, Colorado’s “socialism in one state” would seem embattled compared to the larger national marketplace.
Why would it surprise anybody that the health care industry would try and stop legislation that would reduce their profit? Did I miss something?
It’s not about profit as much as it is about everything else in their dominoes.
No, you didn’t miss anything. It’s first and foremost about profit. Whatever reasons are given, it always boils down to the fear of losing huge profits. The other issues of market dominance and control are still important, but secondary.
The so-called healthcare providers see this as the thin edge of the wedge – if it works in Colorado then they fear the model will sweep the rest of the country and devastate their massive profits. As it should.
Capitalism at its worst, directly and visibly affecting the health of the people.
I wasn’t surprised to see HCA involved in trying to stop this. I worked for that co. waaaay back in the eighties and while it wasn’t a bad place to work, it was and remains an evil entity run by a bunch of greedy b*****ds whose sole motivation is profit regardless of whatever propaganda they may spew. On how many levels is healthcare for profit wrong??? Avarice rules this nation of ours and the only way to remove the grasp of the rich and powerful from our collective throats is to stand up and fight back just like the courageous people in this article are doing. Stay strong , Coloradans!! I have Medicare and love it. I’ve never once yearned for the days of fighting with the insurance cos. provided by my employers. Almost every doctor accepts it, many preventative tests are free and my prescriptions cost around $3.00. There is no reason this country couldn’t have single payer like all other countries on the level we’re supposed to be.
We can all have it one day… sometime after more people want it than don’t.
The folks wanting status quo are a tough opponent.
Appreciate this article, and many of these comments. Thanks Tina424. Hope you and others will consider volunteering for the campaign: http://www.ColoradoCare.org. Good writers/thinkers needed!
The problem with state single payer is that the health industry is so big and powerful they can easily sabotage it. However a regional initiative including California would have critical mass to succeed. Given that Sacramento is controlled by Democrats there is a window of opportunity to get this done.
“Given that Sacramento is controlled by Democrats…”
Doesn’t mean anything these days. Obama is a Democrat, and he had a Democratic Congress to work with in the first two years of his presidency. His ACA still had no Single Payer option.
We need progressive Democrats to jump ship from their neoliberal hijacked party and bolster the Green Party, so perhaps we might soon have a party in office that would unequivocally support Single Payer.
“We need progressive Democrats to jump ship from their neoliberal hijacked party and bolster the Green Party…”
http://movement4bernie.org/
While I’ve been watching Bernie’s campaign with interest, as it is a battle for the soul of the Democratic Party, my original assessment stands, especially after New York. It was a valiant try, but it’s time to abandon ship; the Democratic Party is utterly controlled by its neoliberal wing.
http://www.jill2016.com
I can’t say that I disagree with you. What about a Stein/Sanders ticket?
Liberal commies is another name for progressive Democrats. You people are constantly trying to control others. Shame!
‘Given that Sacramento is controlled by Democrats there is a window of opportunity to get this done.’
Hilarious. You’re killing me.
Actually, it was one province in Canada that started their health system.
There was a single payer fight when the ACA was created, and insurance/oligarchy pushed so hard that POTUS, et. al folded. In the ACA is the opportunity for states to create their own system if it is as good as or better than ACA.
For those of you who do not live here, and feel very strongly that this fight is for Colorado and the rest of the country, your donations are sorely needed. http://coloradocareyes.co/
Really appreciate The Intercept writing this article!
I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: all of the structures in our society rise up from and are supported from our base foundation in America- extractive, rogue capitalism. Until the substance of the base is addressed, the foundation, all the structures around us will continue to have the purpose of extracting money from people without due regard for other considerations; such as their humanity. It’s really this simple.
This is not meant as a shameless plug, because I am being sincere, but this is the genius of Sanders. He is attempting to address the ‘base foundation’ and how we ought to relate to each other in society.
This is also the genius of Coloradans, they are willing to pay higher taxes to care for each other. This is honorable and commendable.
Incidentally, one of the things that I believe is missing in much of the dialogue that takes place here on TI is a more clear definition of who the main extractive culprits are, both persons and organizations. Who are the 60 wealthiest people in America, in what ways do they give or take, what businesses do they own? Which companies were taxpayer bailed out, and what were the subsequent salaries of the CEOs of these companies? Which private companies have the most government contracts in times of war, and how much money are we talking about. I would like to see a very detailed article some day on the size and scope of who in America is extracting and by what methods. I know there are several resources, because I have read many of them, but perhaps a solid synthesis could happen here?
Thanks, TI, for letting me sound off here. Venting frustration here seems my best outlet, and I appreciate it.
“Incidentally, one of the things that I believe is missing in much of the dialogue that takes place here on TI is a more clear definition of who the main extractive culprits are, both persons and organizations. Who are the 60 wealthiest people in America, in what ways do they give or take, what businesses do they own? Which companies were taxpayer bailed out, and what were the subsequent salaries of the CEOs of these companies? Which private companies have the most government contracts in times of war, and how much money are we talking about. I would like to see a very detailed article some day on the size and scope of who in America is extracting and by what methods. I know there are several resources, because I have read many of them, but perhaps a solid synthesis could happen here?”
I second that request. It would be very enlightening to see who is pulling the strings.
spot on
Do you see what happens when States like Colorado decriminalize marijuana? Their electorate starts to engage in collective, drug-induced fantasies wherein they presume the right to reap some direct benefit from their tax dollars.
The whole country is going to pot!!!
Yeah, and we’ve gained tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue, lower arrest rates, and fewer people on jail. Not to mention the enormous influx of tourists and people moving here from other states. Our economy has exploded because of legalization.
The swiftness with which the trade associations descend upon a social advancement is a direct correlation to the beneficence of the program.
Ahh. Nicely said.
second that.
Yes, nicely said, truth has a nice ring.
i gave $300 some years back and i remember some high ranking legislator on some committee killed it. i have to laugh now at how the world has been gutted by the rich, fukushima is ignored ,louisiana is 20% smaller (now underwater). the shills who are so well off and have no empathy for others will not like what i wrote….oh well what the hell…
consolation prize – the bloodsuckers live in seaside beachview mansions which were not equipped with pontoons.
Once again a journalist totally misrepresents the infant mortality rate of the US in comparison to other countries. Every country has a different cut off for “infant deaths” and the US is from birth up to one year. And how many children do we save that are preterm compared to other countries. Also, those other countries set their cut off age well before one year, some as early as one week of age. After that it doesn’t count. Add to that how many preterm infants we save that may end up dying in the neonatal intensive care unit later on and the discrepancy compared to other countries gets even worse. Do your research and quit comparing apples to oranges.
weird that you’re focusing on such a tiny aspect of the article
you’re ignoring all the key points:
– the single payer, taxpayer based system is far, far cheaper for both the people and the state government
– we’re the only wealthy country that doesn’t have a such a system
– and this is obviously because of the massive amounts of $ the for-profit health care industry pumps in the congress and senate
address those points you corporate troll
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development use the same criteria for ranking infant mortality in all the countries. It does not use any government criteria. So yes it is a fair comparison sadly for the US.
If you had done the research and really wanted people to know the results, you would include them in your comment.
They may have shot themselves in the foot here:
The percentage of people covered by employer-provided health care has been chipped away at for years. And those still fortunate enough to have it have been saddled with an increasing percentage of the costs via co-pays and other disincentives to actually using it. So it’s a little late for these charlatans to be raising the flag of “save teh private policies”. And the insurance industry as a whole – which is nothing more in this case than an extractive layer of unnecessary bureaucracy – should be reduced to providing extra care that people may elect above and beyond the basics.
If ever there was an industry in America that deserved to die, it’s the insurance industry which has spent far too long denying people the coverage they thought they’d purchased through chicanery and outright fraud.
bravo, well said. and lets not forget the oil and coal and nuclear industry which does not clean up its mess (that’s not profitable?). the banking tax avoidance industry hides the rich man’s $$ and no longer pays the 5% or so which was customary for us working slaves not so long ago. or the dept of defense,energy which makes messes everywhere… i could go on and on….
The coal barrons are so depraved that their “one life that’s it” mentality allows them to risk destroying the planet and taking everyone down with it which is more evil than the devil himself would do.
So many industries in this country need to die, now.
I can assure you…if you kill the healthcare industry plenty of people will die right along with it.
So true. The only industries that make money are the scams and unfree markets! And if you did create a brand new competitive industry that produced a useful product with no nasty surprises for the consumer, nobody would invest in it because they expect a higher rate of return!
Most people don’t care about politics until something hits home. Healthcare costs are starting to hit home.
And when not denied the care, the deductibles are so high that people resort to a gofundme style of raising the money! There are no deductibles in Amendment 69, and more reasonable or no co-pays, depending on the care.
Best comment ever
Clearly, the health care and insurance situations prior to ACA and now with the ACA are not optimal solutions for America.
I shouldn’t be surprised but, somehow I still am, that I read such naive and dreamy comments. Single payer is likely the way the USA will go in due time, for a variety of reasons. But no one has commented on the lack of choice we will have when .Gov is in charge of our health care. As if that doesn’t matter?
I currently have an ACA plan and the choice of Doctors in my city of 250,000 population is pretty limited with these plans! Mostly young Doc’s, it’s not easy to see one with some experience. So, I get to be a guinea pig.
There’s no mystery how it will be when single payer arrives. There will be even less choice, just like in other countries. You can’t adequately communicate with or be rightfully considered by some jerk Doc? Too bad; you’re stuck. You need tests for a non-emergency situation – get on the list and they’ll call you in a few months when your turn is up. But, you have discomfort? Whatever. Anyone who thinks I exaggerate is very uninformed. Ask Canadians, the English or Irish, ETC. ETC.
We have a grand opportunity in that many countries have had single payer in place for decades so Americans should study those situations very carefully so that we can create something BETTER. It won’t happen unless we insist on it.
Also, a single payer system in the USA will be much more expensive than in other countries. Why? Because Americans voluntarily give themselves diseases with awful eating habits, lack of exercise and stress. We have the fattest, most illness-prone population in the Western world; by choice. An ugly truth.
Best chew on those realities for awhile and put the panacea dreams aside.
“There’s no mystery how it will be when single payer arrives. There will be even less choice, just like in other countries.” To the extent this is true it is not something endemic to public healthcare but because the public health systems in these places are regularly and deliberately underfunded. I don’t believe that fully funded public healthcare would display these types of problems otherwise. It’s a deliberate feature by TPTB which has no interest in fixing it that’s why the people of Colorado seem to be trying to do it themselves and have included a way to pay for it. Good for you!