Re: “,” Oct. 14 editorial.Ìı
Thank you so much for your endorsement to rejectÌıAmendment 69 and for listing some very detailed facts. Not many people realize that this is a payrollÌıtax that will affect everyone’s paycheck, as well as an additional tax that every Colorado employer must pay. They also do not realize that the self-employed will pay the full 10ÌıpercentÌıon their income, as well as 10ÌıpercentÌıon any other earned income in Colorado. This program would be destructive for Colorado businesses as well as working people, retirees, veterans, etc.
Janice Harnak, ¶Ù±ğ²Ô±¹±ğ°ùÌı
Good lord! Did your editors spend any time actually investigating ColoradoCare? Your editorial sounds like it was written by Coloradans for Coloradans, the opposition group financed by millions of dollars in contributions from insurance companies, drug companies and large hospital chains.
Yes, ColoradoCare raises taxes by $25 billion the first year, but it replaces $30 billion that Coloradans currently spend each year on insurance premiums, deductibles and more. After rounding, we save $4.5 billion. The 21-member board (elected by us) must follow the principles laid out in the amendment. Employers who currently provide health insurance pay about 13.5 percent on average. This would drop to 6.67 percent. Employees typically pay far more than 3.33 percent for their share.
Guinn E. Unger Jr.,ÌıBayfield
The Denver Post is clearly in the pockets of big insurance. Your editorial is full of biases and conjecture meant to create fear, not understanding. And there was not a mention in The Post of a ColoradoCare press event recentlyÌıfeaturing endorsing physicians and Dr. Patch Adams of movie fame.
In the 1960s, the American Medical AssociatedÌıjoined the Canadian Medical Association and chambers of commerce to fight, with the same kind of ominous predictions, the first Canadian universal health insurance plan. But the people approved it anyway. Now Canadian physicians and patients love how simple it is.
Look at ColoradoCare’s benefits for you, and vote to expand health care to everyone.
Judy Danielson,ÌıDenver
Initially my wife and I strongly supported Amendment 69. We firmly believe that a single-payer medical system is in the best interest of all Americans, the country and, yes, on a local level, even just the state. Closer scrutiny, however, reveals a major flaw for people in our situation. We are 69 and 70 years old, retired and both on Medicare. We both are on Social Security and have modest defined-benefit retirements. We are comfortable, but hardly wealthy. Under Amendment 69, our state income tax would go up between $5,000 and $6,000 a year with little, if any, additional benefit to our existing medicare coverage. Sorry, too much of a hit. We will have to voteÌı“no.”
John Ham,ÌıAurora
The Denver Post’s recent editorial dismissing ColoradoCare as a “completely untested social experiment” are inaccurate and disingenuous to the entire discussion surrounding American health care. Every other advanced country similar to the U.S. —ÌıCanada, western European countries, Japan, South Korea, Australia, etc. — guarantees health care as a right of citizenship and not a privilege of the 1ÌıpercentÌıand spends less with better health outcomes than America.
Deborah Shults,ÌıColorado Springs
In its editorial against Amendment 69, The Denver Post launched a misguided fear-bomb at one of the most innovative and beneficial ballot measures in Colorado history.
The editorial failed to mention that Amendment 69 would save Colorado residents, businesses and cities billions of dollars a year on health insurance. ItÌıfailed to mention that ColoradoCare would give every Colorado resident access to platinum-level health care while making crushing medical bankruptcy and debt a thing of the past. ItÌıalso failed to mention that, with its 21-member elected board, ColoradoCare would be the most accountable and transparent health insurance in the nation.
Private insurance no longer works for Coloradans. Premiums are rising an average of 20ÌıpercentÌıin 2017 and coverage is decreasing. The term “benefits†has become so meaningless that it is insulting. One in five Coloradans cannot afford care, and that number will swell over the next few years. Meanwhile, private insurers profit at record rates.
By uncritically adopting the fear-mongering language of private insurers, the editorial board is clinging to our sinking health care system and asking us all to go down with the ship.
ColoradoCare is the lifeboat.
Vote “yes†on Amendment 69.
Irene Aguilar, M.D., Denver
The writer is a state senator and a member of the Board of Directors at Denver Health.
The National Active and Retired Federal Employee (NARFE) Association represents the interests of almost 100,000 federal employees and retirees in the state of Colorado.
For federal employees and retirees, the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan (FEHBP) is one of the most important benefits they have. It provides comprehensive health care benefits with insurance premiums partially paid for by the federal government. If FEHBP coverage is dropped by the insured, it is lost forever.
Federal employees and retirees would be able to keep their federal health care plans under ColoradoCare. However, they would be subject to the same 10 percent tax rate as other Coloradans to finance ColoradoCare. This would impose additional state taxes on federal employees and retirees for health services they would never receive — or, in other words, taxation without representation. NARFE strongly opposes Amendment 69.
Ted Van Hintum, Buena Vista
The writer is president of theÌıColorado Federation of NARFE Chapters.
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