Well, it’s on the 2016 ballot. Short version: Colorado opts out of the Affordable Care Act and instead goes for Universal Health Care.
Sounds like a bit of a tax hike, but nothing oppressive. I just renewed my health insurance plan at work and my premium is about 4% of my gross. The tax for UHC is supposed to be 3% to me (and 7% to the employer if I read this right). Curious to see how this one plays out.
I did some rough back-of-an-envelope calculations, and I reckon that about 4% of my income, as paid in direct taxes on a reasonably comfortable income, and roughly 4% of the government’s VAT sales tax, goes on paying for our NHS, which sounds comparable.
But a lot depends on whether the state agency can use its position to influence costs, through set tariffs, particularly block tariffs rather than charging per item of service.
This is what gets me: Colorado’s a large market, but I’d feel better if it were California.
Another thing is eligibility and, therefore, residency: How much of a resident would you need to be to benefit? Could a bunch of “healthcare snowbirds” (sick birds? ill eagles?) sign up, live most of the year in Oldfolkistan, and only come to Colorado when they need treatment, dodging most of the Colorado taxes?
No shit, Sherlock. Think of single payor universal health care as an anti-parasite pill.
I’m cautiously excited about this. Oregon had a single payer ballot initiative in 2002,and 78% of people voted against it. Oregon is probably a little more liberal than Colorado.
However this was in an off season election, which favors conservatives. A presidential election should bring out more left leaning voters.
Plus 2002 was a while ago. The health system is much more brutal and unaffordable now.
But in between all the angry white people, financial incentives to keep the system, etc I think it’ll fail Sadly. However it’ll do better than Oregon, probably losing by 55-60% of the vote vs Oregon 78%.that is my view.
I don’t know the details but would it be possible to have a “Health Tax” on participants on money earned elsewhere, like the US taxes income earned outside the US?
I also wonder how this will be dealt with. I wonder less about how this issue would affect Vermont, for even though they are smaller and thus easier to get to, they have higher other taxes and cost of living compared to CO so I assume there are fewer people who would try to take advantage.
Colorado has about 5.4 million residents. For comparison, assuming the merger goes through, Anthem-Cigna has about 53 million enrollees.
I live in Colorado and few people thought legal marijuana would pass (including me.) Colorado has a contrarian streak that doesn’t follow the old left/right split. Sometimes we do shit just because we can.
I’m sorry, I can’t let this pass without comment. Can we get some applause for “ill eagles”?
<golf clap>
‘Ill eagles’ is one of my stock puns. I appreciated it.
I can just hear the gears crunching over in The Peoples Republic of Boulder: Hmmm…medical weed + free healthcare = FREE WEED!
We call them “snowbirds” here in Canada, after the Ann Murray song. They spread their tiny wings and fly away in the fall, and then come back in the spring. Oldfolkistan is usually Arizona or Florida, depending on where the snowbirds live in Canada. Their migration pattern is normally due south, so the Crested Eastern Snowbirds tend to winter in Florida, while the Great Western Snowbirds head for Arizona.
The issue of eligibility is dealt with by their normal Canadian residence. One of the indicators of that is payment of income tax. If they say that they reside in Saskatchewan and paid taxes there, then they’re eligible for medicare from Saskatchewan.
We’re helped by the fact that the agreement on tourist visits between the US and Canada says that a Canadian needs a visa if they’re going to stay in the US for more than half a year. It would cause all sorts of complications for your average snowbird if they stayed more than half a year, because then they need a US visa, would have to start paying US taxes, and so on. So their migration patters always bring them back before the 183 day mark, which helps to clarify that they are indeed residents of their home province.
I hope so. I think UHC will be like weed or gay marriage, you have to have a few courageous states pass it first and show that no, the world didn’t end before it catches on in other states and then nationwide.
If Colorado becomes the first state to both legalize weed and pass UHC then it will become my 2nd favorite state in the union. California is still #1.
“Health tourism” is one of the things that periodically gets excitable people excited in the UK; the NHS does have some elaborate rules to establish boundaries between who and what is and isn’t covered, but there really doesn’t seem to be much evidence of massive financial loss to the taxpayer from people coming to this country electively just for that purpose. But Colorado might want to look at some sort of equivalent “ordinary residence” rules or a system of hypothecated contribution records, if it does come to be a problem.
One other check on the residency issue is the health card. Each provincial government issues a health card to each resident. You need to have a health card to access Medicare. If you move from one province to another, there’s a three month waiting period to get your card.
So if Colorado were to take that approach, anyone who wanted a card would have to meet whatever residency test Colorado established. If a person doesn’t have a card, they don’t access Colorado UHC.
Provinces have deals with each other, so for the most part, if you break your leg out-of province in Canada, usually your own province will cover the tab. That’s an area in which private insurers still play a role in Canada – gap insurance (e.g. out of province/out of country coverage, drug, dental, etc.).
A weak area of our system is that basic coverage does not cover drugs you purchase from the pharmacy. There are various provincial programs that step in when a person’s medication costs get too high, but I’d much rather see across the board coverage.
nm
In the entire US.
Comparing that to one state isn’t exactly apples and oranges.
I was going to say that there’s a significant difference… that “one of these things is not like the other…” but now that I think about it, the “one thing” I was thinking about is not the one I think about now.
I was going to say that the difference between UHC and the other (already-passed) initiatives is that there’s a metric crapton of money to no longer be made if UHC becomes reality. And that’s different from the others, so expect more (and deeper-pocket, and dirtier) opposition from the status quo.
But legalized weed is a chip off the edge of the War on Drugs, which is also a huge money-maker for certain parties. And that still passed.
I suspect that if there is a difference, weed was just nicking the edge of the money-printing-machine, so the full weight of The Powers That Profit didn’t come to bear against it, whereas full UHC is the whole enchilada, so the incumbent plutocrats have everything to lose. Something to think about.