Colorado has a proposed single-payer health plan on the ballot in November. Amendment 69 would create a state-run health-care system, funded both by taxes and by transferring money out of various federal programs.
As KDVR reports,the money would go directly into the coffers of ColoradoCare, the state’s health program. The government-run health insurer would be the first of its kind in the country. The proposal is expected to cost more than $30 billion.
If the plan goes through, private health insurance will likely cease to exist in Colorado. Co-pays and deductibles would be eliminated under the proposal.
T.R. Reid, a leader in the single-payer movement and author of the New York Times-bestselling The Healing of America, lauded the measure. “We are going to lead the country to universal health care,” he said, adding, “We should have done this decades ago.” Reid believes the taxes citizens pay would be cheaper than what residents pay for premiums and deductibles.