ColoradoCare modeled after flawed VA system

Pueblo Chieftain/July 23

Amendment 69, the so-called ColoradoCare issue on the Nov. 8 ballot, puts everyone in Colorado at risk by effectively forcing all other health care insurers to leave the state.

ColoradoCare essentially is a single-payer system except for deferring to such existing federal programs as Medicare and Veterans Administration coverage.

Among the disturbing consequences if Amendment 69 passes is the very real likelihood that by imposing a 10 percent tax on personal income in Colorado (two-thirds paid by employers and one-third by employees) and a second 10 percent tax on all other income of citizens, few could afford to purchase additional coverage from a shrinking number of private health insurers.

And the 10 percent tax could be increased annually if Colorado voters approve higher rates in elections set up by an Amendment 69 board of trustees. Yet if the voters reject raising the tax rate, the same ColoradoCare trustees — as few as a simple majority (11 of the 21 board members) — would be empowered to cut health care benefits to maintain their financial sustainability, as the proposed amendment states.

Furthermore, this board of trustees’ power to control taxes and benefits comes from provisions in Amendment 69 and would cement them into the Colorado Constitution. And constitutional amendments are very hard to change or revoke.

So if denied more tax revenue by the voters, this board of trustees invariably would cut payments to doctors and hospitals to lower costs.

When we have difficulties obtaining care for illnesses, accidents or work-related injuries because our benefits or payments to doctors and hospitals have been lowered, we effectively would have no other insurer available doing business in the state.

We have no choice.

We have no control.

In exchanges under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), 23 states created co-op insurers subsidized by the federal government to pay for care for their citizens. Even with these federal subsidies, 12 have gone bankrupt. Colorado’s co-op has gone bankrupt.

The citizens insured by these co-ops had to apply to other insurers on their states’ exchange. But what if there were no other insurers? How would we obtain healthinsurance for ourselves and our families? We wouldn’t.

Amendment 69 would be the single and only health insurer in Colorado. Our free-market safety net would be gone. We would have no other insurer to go to.

As their revenues decrease, many of the doctors we have come to know and trust would retire. Others would go bankrupt or just quit. They would close their offices and seek other avenues for their knowledge and talents.

Smaller hospitals would go bankrupt. Others would close. Larger hospitals would consolidate facilities or merge to try to remain open. For us and our families, this means our choice of hospitals and doctors would decrease dramatically.

We would have limited opportunity to choose who we like, who is best, who we trust for our health care. As the number of hospitals and doctors decrease, the number of patients per hospital and per doctor would increase.

Our free choice of providers would be gone. Our wait time for service would increase.

Many doctors and other health caregivers who choose to stay in medical care would seek relief from the consequences of Amendment 69, by leaving the state.

Those hospitals that remain open, survivors of the mergers, would struggle to find the doctors and health caregivers needed to help handle the increased number of patients seeking care.

This would begin our free-market health care system’s transformation into what we are forced to call the “Colorado Citizens VA Health System.”

We have all read, heard and watched the news on problems our honorable veterans have had to endure with the Veterans Administration hospital system. Part of the causes of these problems for our veterans are a single VA system — limited hospitals, limited doctors and limited caregivers.

Citizens would suffer under the Amendment 69 single-payer health insurance company, paying increased taxes for premiums, being deprived of choice for their health care, having to endure the turbulence our veterans have endured — an unbearable consequence for all of us.

Right now in our free-market system, we have a choice. We have control. We have a safety net. We have health insurance companies competing. We have doctors and caregivers competing. We have hospitals competing. All are competing to care for us. Take control of your health and vote no on Amendment 69.

Ralph Williams is a CPCU with HUB International Insurance Services; Dr. Ralph Spinuzzi is a retired medical doctor; and Jack Rink is a former Pueblo Economic Development Corp. president and Pueblo City Schools (D60) board member.