The Patriot Post® · ColoradoCare: Coming Soon to a State Near You?

Less than two weeks ago, two health insurance co-ops — Oregon’s Health Republic Insurance (15,000 customers) and Colorado HealthOP (80,000 customers) — were the seventh and eighth to fail under ObamaCare. (That leaves just 15 co-ops, 11 of which are scrambling to stay alive.) Colorado hasn’t learned any lessons from this failed experiment; instead, some activists want ObamaCare replaced with universal health care — one of the Democrat Party’s favorite prerogatives — and it appears they will get that chance. According to The Denver Post, “A group called ColoradoCare is petitioning for a 2016 ballot question, Initiative #20, to establish universal health coverage under a state-run single-payer system that would increase state taxes by $25 billion.” Assuming the petition musters enough votes — and some reports indicate it has — and gets approved by the state, the measure rests in voters’ hands.

Vermont explored but ultimately abandoned the idea of a universal option just last year. Former ambassador Peter Galbraith daftly explained why: “[To get enough funding through] the sales tax, it would require a sales tax of 30 percent. If you do it on the income tax, you would have the bottom rate be 15 percent and the top rate be 30 percent. That would make the top effective tax rate in the state of Vermont about 73 percent.” Hot Air’s Kristina Ribali says, “Hopefully, Coloradans that can do math and who want to avoid a similar hit to their bottom lines, will stop this plan that would undoubtedly cost more than estimated, provide worse health outcomes, and drive jobs out of the Centennial State.” That might be asking too much for a state that leans more and more liberal, but at least in this case, if universal health care is approved, it’s from voters’ own stupidity and not from lawmakers on Capitol Hill shoving it down their throats. Unfortunately, it will set a dangerous precedent, and pretty soon the federal government will be looking to borrow from Colorado’s playbook in the form of UniversalCare.