INFLUENTIAL DEMOCRATIC CONSULTANTS, some of whom work for the Super PACs backing Hillary Clinton, have signed up to fight a bold initiative to create a state-based single-payer system in Colorado, according to a state filing posted Monday.
Coloradans for Coloradans, an ad-hoc group opposing single payer in Colorado, revealed that it raised $1 million over the first five months of this year. The group was formed to defeat Amendment 69, the ballot measure before voters this year that would change the Colorado constitution and permit a system that would automatically cover every state resident’s health care.
The anti-single-payer effort is funded almost entirely by health care industry interests, including $500,000 from Anthem Inc., the state’s largest health insurance provider; $40,000 from Cigna, another large health insurer that is current in talks to merge with Anthem; $75,000 from Davita, the dialysis company; $25,000 from Delta Dental, the largest dental insurer in the state; and $100,000 from SCL Health, the faith-based hospital chain.
Under the new system, there would be no health insurance premiums or deductibles, and all health and dental care would be paid for by the state through a new system called ColoradoCare. The plan calls for raising $25 billion through a mix of payroll taxes, along with bringing down costs through negotiations with providers.
The filing reveals that the anti-single-payer group has retained the services of Global Strategy Group, a Democratic consulting firm that has served a variety of congressional candidates and is currently advising Priorities USA Action, one of the Super PACs backing Clinton’s bid for the presidency.
Last month, Global Strategies Group circulated a polling memo that contends that the single-payer ballot measure can be defeated because voters “overwhelmingly reject” the idea.
But, the memo warned, the measure “has some traction with key groups,” including Democrats and millennials, and that the 2016 election year has proven difficult to predict. “[A] sustained campaign pointing out the many flaws in Amendment 69 is essential, especially in such an unpredictable environment,” the memo concluded.
After the memo appeared online last month, I called Andrew Baumann, the vice president of research at Global Strategy Group, to ask him about it, but said he could not reveal who had paid for it or why his firm was researching vulnerabilities with the single-payer initiative.
The filing shows that the firm was paid $58,000 by Coloradans for Coloradans for “consultant and professional services.”
A number of other Democratic firms have signed up to help defeat single payer, too. Hilltop Public Solutions, a firm managed by former campaign staffers to Barack Obama, was paid $45,000 by the group. Hilltop has also provided consulting services to Ready PAC, another Clinton-supporting Super PAC that eventually folded into the Clinton campaign.
The Trimpa Group, a consulting company run by Democratic strategist Ted Trimpa, also received a payment from Coloradans for Coloradans.
The Democratic consultants are listed alongside several Republican firms, including Brandeberry-McKenna Public Affairs, a GOP company that also lobbies for the drug industry.
As we previously reported, healthcare interests have mobilized to defeat Amendment 69, with the health insurance industry leading the way.
Countries such as Canada and the United Kingdom have been largely successful in providing universal healthcare at far lower costs than the U.S. using a single-payer system. Private health interests have lobbied for decades to defeat cost-saving healthcare reforms, starting with President Harry Truman’s effort to create single payer.
besides taking a ton of your money and then dribbling it out at their whim, being sure they skim a good percentage of it for their “hard work” what is the actual benefit of going this way as compared to having a health insurance co-op or letting the government handle it as expanded medicare for all?
“Coloradans for Coloradans”?……should be “Corporations Against Coloradans”
Groups naming their organizations in the hope of confusing, hood winking the electorate is nothing new and is such a blatant lie that naming groups as such should fall under the truth in advertising laws. What these groups do is clearly deceptive meant to misinform and should be stopped, even prosecuted. Remember Bush’s “Clear Skies Initiative”? http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/07/opinion/clear-skies-rip.html?_r=0
US states are prohibited from doing anything tat could save money, especially single payer, by US trade agreemets and trade policy. This has been covered up aggressively. Nicholas Skala wrote the definitive paper on the problem with WTO GATS, though in 2009, then on the eve of a historic vote in the House, on August 9, 2009, in the prime of his life, the 27 year old law student and single payer activist suddenly died. What happened?
See his great paper here: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.405.5725 (Read this first)
See a pre-cover up exploration of the big GATS problems that also talks about the just beginning TiSA negotiations here. (Read this 2nd)
http://www.maine.gov/legis/opla/ctpchlthcaresub.pdf
So was HRC’s much vaunted healthcare “plan” really a diversion from the then pending GATS, in case it was discovered by the media ? I don’t know. It doesnt look good.
Read about the clashes between GATS, TiSA, TTIP, and TPP and public services here:
http://www.iatp.org/files/GATS_and_Public_Service_Systems.htm
http://www.ciel.org/Publications/PublicServicesScope.pdf
What about public higher education?
http://www.eua.be/Libraries/publication/EUA_Statement_TTIP.pdf
See also:
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National_Office_Pubs/putting_health_first.pdf
https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/major-complications
Look at this ISDS case against Slovakia- This could be us- see below-
http://www.italaw.com/sites/default/files/case-documents/italaw3207.pdf (Note the plaintiff is also a Clinton Foundation donor)
Read this paper about NAFTA- especially page 8
http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/lwp/nafta.pdf
See how long they have been gaming us with the same tricks-
Hillary needs to explain why she has been hiding all this from our country! We need to do what people in the EU are pushing for- create carve outs from trade deals that explude all important public services- and dump ISDS and the special courts and their special rights for corporations, entirely-
We need single payer, its the only way to make healtcare affordable- Important, single payer means no insurance companies, no tiers, and health care is free to the end user- Like Canada has – except with Rx drugs and dental care. This will save a lot in disease- ACCEPT NO FAKE SUBSTITUTES-
Must see video, Nick Skala shortly before his sudden death: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWBZz070m-k “Public option v. Single Payer” (only Single Payer manages to avoid the GATS trap- thats been set up for it – only single payer works!)
**Please read his paper right now! **
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.405.5725
This article is a bit deceptive, Hillary hasn’t stated whether she does or doesn’t support this Amendment.
How nice that the church has $100,000. to spend to block healthcare in Colorado. I suppose their hospitals don’t pay any sort of taxes so they can afford to throw a little cash around to help their faith based bottom line.
Who do you think wrote ACA, and has a vested interest in seeing it continue until no further profits can be sucked out of the American public? Just wait, right now it’s just starting to become obvious to the sleeping masses that their new tax, a.k.a mandatory premiums (as profit for private insurance shareholders), when combined with typically high deductibles and extensive copays and “co-insurance” (whatever the f**k THAT is supposed to mean) is not what it seems; that they’re still paying through the nose for medical care.
Any doubt now that the DemocRATS are sucking at the same corporate tit that the Teapublicans are? Or that Billary will do anything to improve health care nationwide? Democrats lobbying AGAINST single payer health care.That’s why I support Bernie. Oh, and I live in Colorado and will be voting in favor of this bill, no matter how much money the Health care industry and their cronies spend to tell me not to.
I recently suffered the indignity of being made homeless by my neighbours apartment drug lab blowing up. In my escape I got burns to my hands and a lot of smoke inhiliation.
I was taken to hospital where I recieved world class treatment, an X-ray on the cut of my foot to ensure the debris was gone, a chest X-ray to ensure I didn’t have too much smoke. I saw no less than 4 doctors, and one consultant, and stayed one night. I even got a 14 day supply of a medication I take for an unrelated condition.
I never saw a bill. That’s because I live in Glasgow, the one in Scotland.
Nobody tells me which general doctor to see except the receptionist if the medical practice I chose. If I don’t like the practice, I find a new one. I don’t give them a penny in either case.
No need to worry if they’re on network, or what a copay is. I don’t even pay for Perscription medication. I’m just a taxpayer.
You get the government services you vote for, and I vote for a world class NHS.
I would be refreshing to live in a country where you weren’t required to be able to spell prescription.
Don’t sell yourself short, longtail. People who make fun of errors while simultaneously making the same kinds of errors are refreshing no matter where they live.
I’ve never understood where the leftist cronies get off thinking they can coerce me and coerce my doctor. I want no part of their corrupt communist system.
I live in the UK. The only place where the government gets between me and my doctor is paying the bill for me. I have the one I choose, and can change when I like.
I never understood why you righties feel the need to ration healthcare on ability to pay rather than need.
It’s because of their “I’ve got mine, screw the rest of you” attitude.
Wow. What an eye opener. We are not fighting the govt. We are up against the insurance industry. I have thought this for years. Thanks for your research and report.
They should change the lyrics to that Bob Seger song ” Shame on the Moon” to Shame on America .
Americans now are #1 in missing teeth. The AVERAGE American is now missiong 5.something teeth. Disgusting. My son spent 7 days in a German hospital, emergency surgery, NO BILL WHATSOEVER! Do it Americans, we deserve this.
You deserve the fruits of someone else’s labor?
You’re falsely assuming that Tina doesn’t pay her own taxes. Suck it up, UBG. Change is coming, whether you like it or not.
The plutocracy at work.
As with any other entitlement, the supporters are those who think that they will get a free ride off of someone else.
But somehow they believe that governmental administration will be more efficient than insurance company administration.
Somehow the problems that plague government-run healthcare (Veterans Administration) won’t plague this government-run healthcare.
oh hey how much does Medicare spend on administrative overhead? call your insurance company and ask the same question. Come back and tell us what you find.
I live in Canada and our health care system fucking rocks , they treat me like royalty when I’m there and I don’t even notice the taxes coming off my paycheck to pay for it. Those scumbags should be ashamed of themselves, it’s like their hero Ron Paul said ” just leave sick or injured people without money on the street to die because it shows how free we are” lol.
The problems weren’t with coveted VA care, but with access to VA care. The Affordable Care Act requires the insurance companies to spend at least 80% of premiums on medical care. Excessive costs include pharmaceuticals and durable medical equipment, especially motorized wheelchairs. Overhead includes marketing, underwriting, excessive CEO pay, and profit. Overhead for Medicaid is 3%. We deserve better care for less. The rest is fear-mongering.
The free riders are the scumbag insurance companies that heal no sick, fill no cavities, and yet ride off with the big profits.
Profits they earn in their sleep.
Insurance companies have no incentive to reduce costs they insure against. If costs were lowered enough people wouldn’t need insurance.
Increasing costs means increased premiums and, as a percentage of premiums, increased profits.
And the higher the costs become the higher the risk of not being able to pay for health care; and being without insurance allows the scumbag hospitals to charge exorbitant rates to the uninsured, high over what the insurance companies pay.
The third highest cause of death in the US has been reported to be medical error.
If you’re elderly, you should be mad. You should be mad because you don’t have an alternative.
YOU get the same benefits as everyone else. I guess I should wonder why the money taken out of my paycheck goes to support you. It has been proven time and again that Medicare delivers health care at a fraction of the cost of private insurers. No multimillion salaries for CEO’s, no overcharging to pay stock holders, no advertising budget, and a lot less paper work between the provider and doctor. But I love your “I got mine, [email protected]#k everybody else” attitude. It was that attitude that made this country great.
“But somehow they believe that governmental administration will be more efficient than insurance company administration.”
And “they” would be right. Single-payer would be FAR more efficient for doctors because they wouldn’t have to wade through the current administrative nightmare of different copays, in-network, out-of-network, etc., etc., ad infinitum and ad nauseam.
I felt so betrayed when President Obama caved to the insurance and pharmaceutical companies, when he had advocated for single-payer health coverage as a senator.
The reason we spend more and get less than the rest of the world is because we have a patchwork system of for-profit payers. Private insurers necessarily waste health dollars on things that have nothing to do with care: overhead, underwriting, billing, sales and marketing departments as well as huge profits and exorbitant executive pay.
Doctors and hospitals must maintain costly administrative staffs to deal with the bureaucracy. Combined, this needless administration consumes one-third (31 percent) of Americans’ health dollars. — Physicians for a National Health Program
In contrast, Medicare administrative costs are less than 4 percent.
On the website for the 20,000+ members of Physicians for a National Health Program (pnhp.org): “We propose to replace the ACA with a publicly financed National Health Program that would fully cover medical care for all Americans, while lowering costs by eliminating the profit-driven private insurance industry with its massive overhead.”
Appearing at a hearing before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee in 2008, Dr. Uwe Reinhardt said “We have 900 billing clerks at Duke (medical system, 900-bed hospital). I’m not sure we have a nurse per bed, but we have a billing clerk per bed. . . it’s obscene.”
Actually this is quite a good bet, especially if we don’t pay CEOs billions to suck tax money into their pockets. Social Security and Medicare have years of better management than the HMOs do. The Veteran’s medical benefits are subject to political games, the shortfalls are coming from “conservative” politicians who like war profiteering and treat the veterans of their filthy wars like beggars in the street.
You are right.
VA is just fine. I wouldn’t work anywhere else. My patients are happy, too. Your ignorance is showing.
What more proof is needed that the Clinton effort is being spearheaded by parasitical enemies of the people?
Good luck Colorado; they screwed them in Vermont, bamboozled them in California. I lived in the USA for a few years; had a good PPP plan through my Union but I felt sick (no pun intended) at what I saw all around me including my brothers who ran out of bank hours and were offered COBRA which unemployed people can not afford. Besides money against you, under NAFTA, the corporations who stand to lose money on this can sue the state of Colorado for cutting into their profits. Trade is only a very small part of “free trade”; it’s mostly investor protection or what I call corporate sovereignty. Health care is a Human Right elsewhere, not a commodity to be bought and sold in the marketplace for profit.
William i agree for the most part on health care, but if you want more gun legislation then you need to change the constitution.
Corrupt professional political operatives line up to f the people. Is anyone even remotely surprised.
If this passes I’m moving back to Colorado. I don’t really know why i left in the first place. I had amazing Drs.
I live in CO. If this passes, then my house will be on the market the first Wednesday in November. Maybe I can sell you my house at a high price.
I don’t have any business forcibly interfering in the voluntary exchanges of goods and services, and associations between individuals. Neither do any of you. Having the govt. do it for us doesn’t make it right. It only makes it legal.
I’m no fan of the insurance companies (though mine has treated me fairly and upheld its end of our agreement). I’m also not a fan of the use of force to achieve some “noble’ end as mentioned above. It would be nice if I could actually buy a plan of my choosing, with whatever bells and whistles I want, without the govt. interfering.
What’s also funny is that people I know in countries with socialized medicine often tout it, but when you push them a little, all of the ones making at least an OK living have purchased supplemental health insurance.
The government absolutely has a right to forcibly interfere in the voluntary exchange of goods and services when it proves lethal for those unable to make such exchanges.
You’re no fan of insurance companies, eh? Yet you’d rather pay them thousands per year, probably, than pay a few dollars more in taxes for the same care, and pay the insurers zip. The free market is fine when it benefits everyone. When scenarios arise where it doesn’t, it should be regulated or superseded. We don’t live for it. It exists for us.
And this surprises you
Only good thing about being a New York Democrat is that you’re surprised only when they behave honorably
Why wouldn’t the general public want single payer anyway? Cradle to grave health coverage is not a bad thing unless your eyes have been glued shut by lies! Right, and vote against improving social security, and vote against gun legislation! Right! This is the totally insane right folks, and they would lick their own butts and say it tastes great if the television told them to! The right is in total lock step with the insane, and the democrats are trying to match their steps also. The American political system has destroyed itself using the wealth and power of the greed they so love and defend. I hope they fall hard and fast at last!
But as the article stated, it’ s not jusy the right wing. The wurlitzer has killed any semblance of reason or critical thought in the US.
I could see why the article would make you think that, but there are at least two fairly reasonable problems with amendment 69.
1) legislating through constitutional amendments is messy. We’re still trying to unwind the mess TABOR has made of our budgets.
2) it’s nice that a group of activists worked out some language for this idea, but a lot of that language is sloppy.
The way this is written, increasing costs in health care are passed directly on to an increased pay roll tax. There doesn’t appear to be a cap on the % the state can take from your paycheck via your employer.
Because nothing about this idea is going to change the costs that drive health care spending (say medical technology…) it isn’t unreasonable to worry what happens to coloradan’s take home pay as the costs continue to rise.
3) when my family is out of Colorado, say on a vacation or I bring a kid along on a business trip, what happens when my child gets sick? ColoradoCare negotiates coverage with out of state providers? We wait till we get back to Colorado?
All that “anti” money is already being put to work, I see! Non-specific generalized points that serve only to cause FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt), without really making a valid point.
What happens if you become seriously ill and want to go to a specialty center out-of-state? What happens when you want to go to a heart surgeon other than he one you are directed to?
Good investigative work!
Lee Fang, embarrassing the mainstream press on the regular.
Hmm . . . it’s probably notable then that the nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Colorado is an executive at Kaiser Permanente.
C’mon! Americans are currently coughing up trillion annually on “healthcare.” Did anybody really believe the “industry” would give that up without a fight. What’s really ironic? Today it was announced that death by Doctor (aka medical error) is the third leading cause of death in the United States.
Lee, big thanks for following this story. You do us and your profession a real service.
Coloradocare designed by Coloradans for Coloradans. It’ll cover everyone, save us billions, and come November serve as a wake up call to our two main political parties
coloradocare.org
Praying that the people of Colorado will show the same courage and resistance to manipulation on this issue as they did on legalizing pot. Also hoping that you all will do everything in your power to prevent any kind of fraud committed at the polls.
Disgusted to see that people connected with Obama and Hillary are involved with trying to kill this.
#FeelTheBern
This is all good if you need some authoritarian to manage your life. I frankly want you people out of my life and out of my pockets.
One of the most misunderstood elements of ColoradoCare is that it will not be run by “authoritarian” governments. It is designed as a cooperative and a citizen board will be making decisions on the running and management of the system. Also, the 3.3% payroll tax “could” be paid for by one’s employer. The overall amount currently paid by employers would be less, in many cases.
There is another way to look at this.
Wallstreet wants to profit “based on a fictitious priced valuation”. (they are criminals).
These criminals want to profit “only on their monetary holdings”.
They dont give a crap about anything else.
If you are not willing to suffer for wallstreet, they dont care.
By suffer i mean play their game at their price or, get kicked to the curb.
The only way America is going to win life support and comfort and assurance is to NATIONALISE LIFE SUPPORT & SOME COMFORTS.
wallstreet will jail and kill people who oppose their profiteering ways but, while America can still vote and hold elected persons accountable for crimes against the platform, America has a slim chance.
and it is very slim.
As long as people keep dying, either from disease or from Hillary and Obama having to go out and drone them, they are both delighted. Its when people get to stay alive and healthy, that the powers that be start to get uncomfortable.
Yup. Obama and Clinton “Democrat” shills sign up to destroy any chance of instituting actual healthcare. Following in the footsteps of the Clinton/Clinton atrocity and Obama’s ramming the Heritage Foundation’s Romneycare, government-sanctioned extortion, down the throats of the nation, in Obama’s name.
i do not trust hillary. She wont release the text of her promises to goldsucker sacks, she won’t tell us exactly who is putting up money for her or her superpacs (shows you how much she appreaciates dark money) and i googled
hillary on single payer.
the hale with hillary.
Four years of Trump beats 8 years of Hillary. I’ll be holding my nose, (once again) when I vote.
Don’t take the lazy way out. Write in or vote for someone who’s worth voting for. Both Clinton and Trump are so far below the line of acceptability to me (and most Americans, it seems, as per the unfavorable ratings for both of them) that I know me and my family will be in grave danger regardless of which one of them wins.
Unlike many who will “hold their nose” and vote for one of the two hideous evils at the top two parties, I will be able to look at myself in the mirror with a clear conscience, hoping that we get another sub-50% winner who will be vulnerable in 2020.
As I see it, if Trump wins now, it’ll be Elizabeth Warren in the race for Dems in 2020. If Clinton wins, it’s 8 more years of class warfare run amok, millions more in poverty, new wars, etc. To me, the lesser of two evils is Trump. But I won’t vote for him. If he gets a ‘centrist’ running mate who appeals to independents, Clinton will lose outright.
Why would you not include the OECD statistics that show how much we in the US pay per capita for health care vs the other industrialized countries? The US pays almost $8,000 while in France the figure is about $3,000; Japan around $2,800; the UK $4,000 et cetera.
Those figures show just how much we in the US are having sucked out of our pockets. It isn’t fraud (that’s a small part), it’s not inefficiencies ( though there are many, including all the differing forms for numerous insurers) it’s not lawsuits and liability policies for doctors.
It’s Medicare Part D and the (Republicans in Congress) legislated inability to negotiate with insurers. It’s a sad state of affairs that incomplete articles like this don’t make the point over and over and over.
People should hear about the costs in the US all the time.
I am a nurse. Have vast clinical experience, 45 years in the healthcare field. Also, worked for an insurance company. Believe me, the American public is being screwed by big insurance and the health care industry. $trillions could be saved with a public option, such as Medicare.
Until the entire health care system is excised from corporate greed, capitalism’s big motive, the system will continue to not work, favoring the very ones that least likely need it. It will have to be removed, kicking and screaming, from all aspects of a profit making enterprise. In other words it has to be totally socialized to work for all. Unfortunately money buys lots of resistance from congress an there’s lot’s of money in the health care industry. This won’t be an easy sell, but then when is any social program greeted by open arms from those where exploitation is a way of life. If the USA is going to last even 50 more years there will need to be a paradigm shift of epic proportions, if not, it too will go down the memory holes of failed states.
So are you old boomers ready to give up your cushy jobs at companies like Medtronic?
If we still had jobs, maybe. Boomers, like many young people, don’t have jobs. I prefer this to being bankrupt from health care costs. We have single payer already that works, Medicare. I say, Medicare for all!
The Healthcare conglomerates are scared $hitless of single-payer precisely because it WILL work. Still remember how hard they fought the public option (a much more limited form than Colorado’s proposed) during the Obamacare debates, ably assisted by Obama himself.
Too bad the Democrats are now the party of FDR about as much as the Republicans are the party of Lincoln.
Thank you Lee Fang for exposing the truth! Healthcare in America always puts #ProfitsOverPeople
If it passes, no doubt the health insurers will take it to court and argue that this constitutes a “taking”…
TPP.
“You damaged our profitability. You all are going to prison. The rest of you are gonna pay for these losses and damages or you will go to prison too. Then we do have the right to force labor to pay for the expense.”
evil has no boundaries
Precisely why I don’t support either current ruling party; they’re both bought and corrupt as heck. I hope the Colorado Green Party is able to give this some significant support.
call for a coalition of all other parties.
we must unite.
write the platform!
the greedy shall be condemned.
Regardless of how the health care insurance industry started out – many of them as coops created by doctors to encourage preventative care – the health insurance industry has long ago “gone rogue”.
Unless you actually work for a health insurance company, it’s hard to imagine the amount of wasted resources that go into supporting the mind-boggling complexity needed for processing the simplest claim. Those are resources that could go into actual health care services, not overhead. And then there’ the network rules for each carrier, which means you will have a very limited selection of doctors, no matter what insurance you have.
The entire healthcare insurance industry now serves no purpose other than to skim money off of consumers, employees, and employee groups.
Consultants connected to Obama, Hillary, and GOP Super Pacs helping the mega-buck “health care” industry defeat Proposition 69.
Vultures of a feather flock together.
You don’t have to live in Colorado to vote for this – by helping against the paid industry propaganda here:
http://coloradocareyes.co/
We need to say yes to amendment 69
Hella rallying cry, I say!
Don’t for a moment think big insurers and big pharma will spare any expense to defeat this. If that means hiring Democrats, there are many in that party who are just shills for the corporate wing of the party.
This is no surprise.
Canada and Great Britian: fraction of US population.
Raise in payroll taxes to cover this state-paid system will of course grow unemployment as businesses deal with this new cost. As every other government run industry, prices will continue to rise.
Economics matter.
So do statistics and economies of scale. A big country would save more than a smaller country for the same reason WalMart operates more cheaply than a Mom and Pop shop.
Colorado: fraction of UK and Canada’s population.
Huh? If this passes, I’m going to move my company to Colorado!
There is no way I could get an Insurance company to provide this level of coverage for the proposed amounts withholding on the final copy approved for the ballot.
Also there is no “government run” in any of the language I read. Do you need a link to full text?
You are spouting ideology, Marc. The US health care, not government run, is famously more expensive than single-payer systems, and than fully socialized systems. (Single-payer systems are not “government-run”, by the way. Just financed by the public rather than via private insurance.)
Actually single payer is great for business and great for entrepreneurship. With a level playing filed companies can concentrate on their products (not haggling with insurers) and individuals are more able to start companies knowing they are not doing so without health insurance … The only effective argument against single payer is that it would put insurance companies out of business … which of course is only bad fro insurance companies.
We could really use you to speak out for ColoradoCare. Many of our opponents are saying that businesses will leave – or not come – to Colorado because of ColoradoCare.
Can you contact me? I would love to have you write a commentary that we can send out to publications around the state.
ColoradoCare needs funds to fight back against the negative messaging and ads. If any readers can spare anything, it would be put towards good use to get Amendment 69 passed. Go to ColoradoCare.org to find out more and donate.
Passage of single payer is the measure by which we can determine if we are truly a representative democracy or not.
Amendment 69 is a ballot initiative. It’s “democracy” regardless of the result.
The Democratic Party is a fraud.
I beg all of you to read this 2009 paper by suddenly deceased single payer actvist Nick Skala- the REAL reason our health care and other policy areas like education are so screwed up is a huge Clinton era scheme to take over the future world’s policy for corporations by stealth, with trade deals. (Like TiSA, TTIP, TPP too) It all started with “GATS” – we need to expose this cover up, fast! http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.405.5725
Read it now!
TiSA is the worst- basically GATS on steroids, its “negative list” (=opt out- carve outs need to go in NOW!) it will privatize and globalize public services, making health care and educatio uaffordable just as jobs are vanishing globally due to exponential growth in technology- undermine futures and sell out all working people everywhere, creating a global race to the bottom on wages. Thats why the writers of GATS did what they did, and Hillary helped hide it, to create fake “crises” in healthcare, education, IT, etc, that only their strong medicine of race to the bottom pushing- “competition policy” would solve – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmFzbVVl6iE
There has to be a better way and its single payer – but the FTAs make it illegal- framing it as a theft from corporations. Education too, look at India in 2015. They had a debate- which we never had. They are giving up public education- But- for what? its a trade- Look at GATS Mode Four- This is also part of what Hillary is hiding. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTRANETTRADE/Resources/C13.pdf See economic description on pages 278-279 – A huge global redistribution of wealth upward to preserve corruption.
I live in Colorado and I can’t wait for/am completely dreading the torrent of political mailers that I am sure will soon be arriving about this issue.
That is so cool.
The Colorado Secretary of State website wasn’t working well… but I was able to dig out the link to the “final” text.
https://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/Initiatives/titleBoard/filings/2015-2016/20Final.pdf
We need this in all 50 states.