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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHealth Care Industry Moves Swiftly to Stop Colorado’s “Single Payer” Ballot Measure
https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/colorad-single-payer/But business interests in Colorado are not taking anything for granted, and many of the largest lobbying groups around the country and in the state are raising funds to defeat Amendment 69, the single-payer ballot question going before voters this November.
The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers, a national trade group, is mobilizing its member companies to defeat single payer in Colorado. The council urges Coloradans to protect employer-provided insurance and oppose Proposition 69, the CIAB warns. The group dispatched Steptoe & Johnson, a lobbying firm it retains, to analyze the bill.
I'm happy to report that our early polls show us ahead statewide. I'm unhappy to tell you that our lead is not big enough to withstand the expected onslaught from our opponents. The insurance companies have funded a huge No" campaign. The Koch Brothers are already running TV ads that say for-profit insurance is the ideal way to pay for health care.
So we need help. We need money
http://coloradocareyes.co
Comment by Don McCanne of PNHP: Without additional enabling federal legislation, Colorado is not able to enact a bona fide single payer system. However, their ballot measure - Amendment 69, ColoradoCare - would improve efficiency, equity and coverage through the health care financing system in their state. Strong opposition is expected since ColoradoCare could be disruptive to some of the well-financed stakeholders, especially the private insurance industry.
The advocates of ColoradoCare are now seeking support for their effort (link above). It will be difficult to educate the public on the facts behind their reform proposal. Even when saturated with facts, the public often remains dubious because of the prevailing anti-government and anti-tax rhetoric. It is a massive project to convert the majority of the voters into passionate supporters of such a cause.
In the meantime, the opponents know that their task does not involve educating the public on the facts. They do not have to engage the other side in a information battle over the truth. They merely have to appeal to the passion of the voters. Simple rhetorical soundbites are usually enough to convince the voters that they do not have to waste their time studying some complicated government scheme in order to know how to vote on it. Just look at some of the rhetoric of the opposition group, Coloradans for Coloradans: doubling the state budget, diminishing accessibility and quality, and creating an unaccountable, massive bureaucracy. Who would support that? No need to try to find out the truth.
This is not just theoretical, as single payer activists supporting ballot measures in California and Oregon can attest to. In both cases, early polling was favorable, as it is now in Colorado. But closer to election time, intensive campaigns were launched by the opponents using simplistic sound bites and slogans, and the results were a disaster. Californias Proposition 186 lost by a 3 to 1 margin and Oregons Measure 23 lost by 4 to 1.
So what should we do? I have three suggestions.
1. Contribute to their effort in any way you can. (Today I made a donation through their website.)
2. If the effort should fail (and I hate to say that), then be sure that everyone understands that this was not a failure of single payer, especially since it is not even a bona fide single payer proposal. Rather it will have been a failure in mobilizing a social movement.
3. Above all, do not let up in the least in your advocacy for a single payer national health program - an improved Medicare for all. That is the ultimate goal, and it could be accomplished in a single step without having to first enact compromised systems in several states. Difficult? Of course. But, in spite of many attempts, how many states have enacted single payer? In this age of advanced communications, mobilizing a social movement on a national basis makes more sense than trying to do it in selected individual states.
think
(11,641 posts)Dustlawyer
(10,497 posts)Their name is "Mud" and telling people that other people don't want them to have something that they themselves have is a good motivator!
kairos12
(12,872 posts)DJ13
(23,671 posts)would see their potential savings and fight the insurance industry.
Triana
(22,666 posts)Hillary gets lots of moolah from them.
Hotler
(11,445 posts)it would mean an employee would actually have some freedom and more choice in their lives. The freedom to leave a shitty job and find a new one and not be tied to a shit job just for the health care. It drives employers crazy when they have very little control over their employees especially outside of the work place.
HughBeaumont
(24,461 posts)Without health care costs in the equation, it's more competition for them. It's an employEE's market, and they don't want that.
benfranklinthomasjef
(2 posts)Single payer passed twice in California and once in Vermont and this time it can't be vetoed. The polls all get different results because the questions are always biased by whoever did the poll.
William Hsiao is perhaps the most widely known academic of health care system. He set up the system in Taiwan and has studied this is entire life. He thinks state based is the only way to go due to political problems at the Federal level.
Amendment 69 is genius in that it doesn't allow the corrupt government to control it. It's really just up to a small board and that's it. A 21 member board.
Here are some of the sites that I have read about in this: http://www.coloradocare.org/amendment69 | http://www.amendment69colorado.org | http://www.colorado69.org
The vote is on November 8th. If you want to come to Colorado there are a lot of supporters coming from all over the nation to canvass, go to debates, rallies, etc. If you want to help they can use it. Their whole campaign is a fraction of the cost of the opposition and they had to get all the signatures.
Imagine the insurance companies knocking on your door to help them. I doubt a lot of people would volunteer to help them.