Post-ObamaCare Preview in Colorado
(I did the underlining and the bolding.)
Amendment 69 would alter the state’s constitution to create a single-payer health system known as ColoradoCare. The idea is to replace premiums with tax dollars, and coverage for residents will allegedly include prescription drugs, hospitalization and more. Paying for this entitlement requires a cool $25 billion tax increase, which is about equal to the state’s $27 billion budget. Colorado would introduce a 10% payroll tax and also hit investment income, and that’s for starters. California would look like the Cayman Islands by tax comparison.
No one thinks this project will float on its planned $38 billion budget. An analysis from the Colorado Health Institute found that ColoradoCare would post a $253 million loss in its first year and would then “slide into ever-increasing deficits in future years unless taxes were increased.” The other options are reducing benefits or cutting payments to doctors—assuming providers haven’t fled the state.
ColoradoCare will have evicted whatever remains of the private insurance market, so residents may have nowhere to turn.
The best independent study on single payer is Vermont, which abandoned the idea in 2014: Governor Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, dumped his signature campaign issue once he figured out it’d require an 11.5% payroll tax and an individual levy as high as 9.5%. Mr. Shumlin admitted that “the risk of economic shock is too high at this time to offer a plan I can responsibly support.”
Remarkably, Colorado has managed to build on Vermont’s failures. For one, the plan aspires to cover more than five million people, not Vermont’s 625,000. Anyone who claims to live in Colorado qualifies, so get ready for a crush of beneficiaries who don’t pay anything. ColoradoCare would be enshrined in the constitution, which is much harder to scrap than legislation.
Ahh, come on! I understand that people can disagree but, when there is this much evidence against proceeding along this path, can’t The Proponents of Disaster ever look at the evidence before their very eyes and simply say, “You know you have a valid point. I have changed my mind. I agree with you.”
It couldn’t possibly be that The Proponents of Disaster are in a position to make money from this bill’s passage...Or could it be?
Would I kid u?
Smartfella
Lagniappe: Maybe it’s the result of all that Marijuana they are smoking and eating out there.
