Why Was Sanders ColoradoCare Rejected 80/20

[otohara]

To those of you who think Sanders would have trounced Trump I ask - Why did Colorado reject the plan he campaigned for and endorsed lose such huge margins?

[otohara]

1. Crickets

just asking?

[LisaM]

2. Why did Russ Feingold lose by a larger margin than Hillary?

Same thing, really.

[otohara]

3. It Was High Taxes

We would have been the highest taxed state in the country.

Businesses would have bolted, small businesses would have closed.

[LisaM]

5. Senators don't set state taxes, though.

I don't know what happened to once-progressive Wisconsin.

[randr]

4. The bill was a poor one with too many problems

[otohara]

6. Same Problems with Vermont's Version?

Sanders didn't think there was too many problems with ColoradoCare. Perhaps he never read it, along with other endorser noam chomsky

[Wilms]

7. Probably because a single state would have difficulty applying leverage.

[otohara]

8. Nope It Was The Cost

and the fear of businesses bolting to other states and small businesses closing.

[LP2K12]

9. It couldn't have anything to do with the actual insurance companies...

The most represented industry was health insurance: Dozens of insurance companies, including Anthem, Centura, Cigna and Kaiser Permanente, denounced the amendment.

Who Paid For It?

Pro-Amendment 69 committee ColoradoCare Yes was outspent 5 to 1 by the opposition, Coloradans for Coloradans.

The opposition raised almost $4.1 million and spent just under $4 million.

The opposition, Coloradans for Coloradans, received the majority of its funding from insurance companies, including Anthem, Kaiser Permanente, United Healthcare Services and Centura Health.

Insurance companies didn't want universal healthcare? Who would have thought!? The same people who didn't want the ACA.

[otohara]

10. Well Somebody Was All For It

Thy names is Bernard and he doesn't know what he's talking about but still they buy the bullshit.

Like that hooey about $15.00 - wouldn't accept Hillary offer of $12.00, willing to take $10.00 from our new Master.

[andym]

11. Because economic progressivism doesn't have mindshare.

It would take the equivalent of a progressive Reagan to reverse the trend. it would take a Teddy Roosevelt, who reached the Presidency by accident, was a catalyst for the Progressive movement. President Obama did reverse declining mindshare that government could work for the common good with the ACA, but it looks like that will be a transient victory. Reaganism and the resulting scorn for the federal government continues to be a strong roadblock.

[politicat]

12. Because a lot of us don't do the math, and don't really know how much our healthcare costs.

I did some voter education on CoCare, and almost every time, most people -- educated people in secure careers -- did not realize how much CoCare would save them, and how much we're already paying, because employer-provided healthcare is a pre-tax deduction. As consumers, we see the cost 27 times a year, on average: in October, at open enrollment, when HR tells us how much less our more expensive plans are going to cover and how much our copay is going up, and on each paycheck, when we see a line-item deduction, but that money never comes into our pockets, and we don't pay the monthly bill on it. Which means that by being outspent 5:1 meant we didn't have the resources to do the educational work that was critical to success. (Please be aware that we couldn't manage to remove slavery from the state constitution either -- that was a reading comprehension fail because that got severely undervoted, the tallies are extremely close, and it lost by coin-flip averages.)

The second issue is that health insurance work is a valuable industry. It's a secure, middle class career with sick time and vacation benefits and predictable hours. It's an office job that the average service industry worker aspires to have. It's a safe landing zone for new college grads, and it makes up a couple percentage points of the state economy, when you figure the various employer sides, the medical provider billing side, and the in-state insurance processing. That specific sector would have been limited under CoCare. That would have cost us jobs.

Small and medium businesses - the ones most likely to relocate - would have been more secure with CoCare, because employee health insurance costs are often in the top 5 line items of expenses, and under the 6.67% tax plan, they probably would have been spending less. So even assuming we didn't lose businesses to other states, we would have lost jobs.

Third, our co-op was failing spectacularly before the federal funding got yanked. The call centers were supposed to be in-state; they never were, so we never got those jobs. Payments to providers were slow and complicated. Registration was a mess, premium payments were lost, got returned, and plans got cancelled. Exchange plans were almost all designed with nearly impossibly narrow networks. Colorado is 80% urbanized, but the people who aren't in the Front Range are driving 9 hours across the Continental Divide for specialist care. We have to figure out an interstate insurance compact with Utah and New Mexico because for the Western Slope and southern Colorado, going to SLC or ABQ is more convenient, and when we're talking cancer, time in the car matters.

Fourth, I believe in CoCare, worked for it, and I want it to succeed, but it was flawed because it was built from compromises. It didn't provide enough protection for full reproductive rights, because it likely would have come into conflict with the Hyde Amendment. It came with 3 years of ramp-up, when most of the state was both paying the tax and paying for private healthcare through payroll deductions. That would have hurt. Our better bet would have been to transfer all employment based benefits -- payment and plans -- to the existing state administration during the ramp-up without the overlap, with a rolling transition to CoCare, while the state absorbs the existing insurance specialists. But that's awfully close to state confiscation, and that idea was dead in the water at the draft stage, and we have a parasitic piece of legislation in the constitution (TABOR) that we have to work around.

It sucks to lose. It sucks that it's going to take time to build up for another shot. But we will, and it will happen.

I write this as a provider who desperately wants to be drafted to a National Health Service. Private insurance is a tapeworm in my profession, as well as being a drain on the body politic. It distracts us from our primary job, promotes opacity and opportunities for graft, and it wastes time and effort we should be focusing elsewhere. It's a legacy of a war-time measure that has outlived its usefulness.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

13. Outstanding analysis

Thanks for taking the time to put this out there.

One thing I always wondered about with ColorardoCare, and perhaps you can answer it, was this: How would the large military, government employee and military/government retiree population have been handled under ColoradoCare? I would doubt that the federal government would pay the 6.67% tax when they're already paying for healthcare, and would a 3.33% tax on people who are already paying for healthcare (or getting it for free through the military) have been accepted?

[politicat]

16. That was another handwavium.

And it was a bug in the code. The theory would be that that would be supplemental insurance, usable outside the state, while CoCare was the primary inside the state. Tri-care would have remained as it is, untouched. The pension and VA care were iffily addressed. But it was a small handwavium, compared to multiple other places where the draft process got distorted.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

17. Thanks! n/t

[kentuck]

14. Because it was way too expensive.

It was a giveaway to the insurance companies of many billions of dollars every year.

[kstewart33]

15. I voted yes on ColoradoCare knowing it was a flawed bill.

It was a symbolic vote. The bill lacked essential specifics. For example, just about everyone would be taxed 10% to cover CCare costs. However, as healthcare costs rise, logically taxes would increase to cover additional CCare costs. However, the bill did not specify how that certain development would be handled, leaving the door wide open for huge tax increases.

There were other problems with the bill, but in my view, this particular shortcoming was the deal breaker.