Why Colorado Care
Amendment 69
Citizens of Colorado gathered enough signatures to put Amendment 69 on the November ballot in Colorado. Amendment 69 will establish a statewide cooperative to provide “every” resident of Colorado with healthcare. Here is why I believe in ColoradoCare and why I think free-market health care has been a catastrophic failure.
My wife and I both have chronic health care issues; kidney failure and chronic pulmonary issues. At any rate, I am very familiar with our healthcare system. They have profited greatly from my wife and I.
For me, the lack of transparency in pricing is my biggest issue. Currently, it is a rigged game. The system has been rigged by health care providers, big pharma, insurance companies, and health care lobbyists that have lobbied for protective legislation through our congressmen. All have profited at our expense. The guys we have voted for have played us for chumps.
I have read and watched youtube videos on ColoradoCare and have seen many people say they want to protect free markets. I am not sure what kind of market we have in healthcare but it is anything but a free-market; unless we want to say providers are free to set a price, free not tell you the price, then free to bill you for whatever they determined to be a reasonable price. Sounds more like racketeering than free-market healthcare to me. On occasion, I have asked my primary doctor what a clinic visit or procedure costs. Even the doctors providing the service in their own private clinic cannot tell me the price. The only exception I can find to this in healthcare is dentists and alternative care providers such as chiropractors. Dentists often post them. They seem to be able to give a price.
Is a price for services too much to ask? The hospitals and insurance companies say it will cost too much to give you a price up front but they sure as hell know the price when they send you a bill. My point is we cannot have a free market if no one knows the price. That will never happen under our current and corrupt health-care system. A business model where the service provider does not disclose price then bills after the service is rendered is certainly a very profitable system they will fight to protect. In Colorado healthcare costs are up over 300% while the cost of inflation in the same time period is around 50%. Ya they are going to fight hard, spread fear, the evils of socialism, the evils of big government double the state budget, yada yada yada. However the 38 billion Coloradans pay for healthcare annually seems pretty large compared to the state budget at 26 billion; 38 billion is low hanging fruit yet we squabble about the price of education at 6 billion.
I understand that insurance companies broker deals with providers and the price might be different for Kaiser compared to Blue Cross compared to me. I still think we as consumers of the service should know the price to comparative shop.
When hail comes through my neighborhood and takes out my roof and dents my car, I get bids. I know the price even though the insurance will pay. I am free to determine if the price is fair and reasonable and if the shop has a good reputation for good work. I am working for my insurance company to make sure the price is fair and work is done properly. Our cars have better healthcare than we do. Would anyone have their house painted, house roofed or car worked on and not want to know the price up front? We would be fools and chumps to do so. But in healthcare, it happens every day. Is it too much to ask for the common free-market practice of disclosing price? Even a chump like me knows that for free markets to work, consumers need to know the price and providers need to disclose the price. The game is rigged.
I was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension (non-smoker health nut), as a result, I have needed echocardiograms. I had an echocardiogram at my local hospital in Pueblo for around $1500. I had a second opinion by a local physician who runs a testing clinic in Pueblo for around $800. I ended up at a world-renowned medical center in Aurora and the cost of an echo was around $3000, my copay was $300. I was complaining to my allergist in Pueblo and he said he has a guy come in once a month to do echocardiograms for $300. I had one there and indeed it was $300. So we have a price of $300 to $3000 for the same 20-minute procedure by a low paid tech who feeds a computer algorithm that spits out a report that the doctor signs. So the cost in Aurora was 11 times the cost of the cheapest echo in Pueblo. The procedure was the same and the reports were the same and the doctor spent at the most a few minutes reviewing the report. Literally within minutes, I had my results and the doctor went over them. Frankly, I think it is legalized criminal behavior. How many of us make $3000 for 20 minutes of work? That is $150 bucks a minute and they probably paid the tech under twenty bucks an hour and the machine is not that expensive. It would be paid for in a week at $3000 a pop. Consider that the tech at 20 bucks an hour has to work the whole month to pay for twenty minutes of healthcare. They can do this because no one knows the price. Free market my ass. We have been played for chumps.
When my wife's kidney failed the insurance company would not cover cyclosporin. We paid $800 a month out of pocket for that drug for a couple years. Not right at two levels, the cost set by the drug company and the insurance company that would not pay. Now several years later it is a cheap generic drug. Peritoneal dialysis fluid costs thousands a month yet is just hypotonic sugar water; dextrose.
Insurance companies are part of the problem. Under Obamacare, there is an 80/20 rule. Eighty percent of the money insurance companies make needs to go to direct care. The twenty percent goes to administration and wages to overpaid CEO’s most who don’t even live in Colorado. So if a procedure costs $3000 or $300, which would they rather have twenty percent of? Would they rather make $600 or $60? Insurance companies like health care providers are in the game to make money. Insurance companies have no incentive to control costs. In fact the higher the costs the more money they make. We as consumers have no skin in the game we only have our wallets in the game. They are taking us for chumps. They are fleecing us.
If we are to believe Paul Ryan perhaps ColoradoCare would resolve his issues with healthcare. As Paul Ryan says Health Care “Obamacare has driven up premiums, limited choices, and hurt the doctor-patient relationship. We will advance ideas to lower costs, increase competition, and build a truly patient-centered health care system.” Hello, Paul, ColoradoCare does that. Insurance companies would actually have to compete with a market force with known prices.
ColoradoCare plans to follow a medicare model where fees are set. Fees will be set at competitive rates similar to what doctors currently charge. Further, Colorado will be able to get bids on prescription medications, which is a big problem with medicare, and determine what is a fair and reasonable price for services rendered. Again, protective legislation by the congressmen that are supposedly working for us has legislated that medicare cannot get bids for prescriptions. Our federal government pays whatever the drug company asks. Congressmen worked for big pharma, not for us. Further, they might work for that big pharmaceutical as a lobbyist or consultant once their public service is over. There is an incentive to legislatively treat them very well.
If we have one non-government, non-profit entity to oversee our healthcare, system corruption will be more apparent, much easier to audit, and more transparent. Then perhaps we will truly move closer to free market healthcare where people know the price and a not for profit entity is working for us to look out for price gouging and unfair business practices. A truly non-profit entity working for us; wow. Can we really call a non-profit hospital that pays their CEO over a million bucks a year non-profit? Things that make you go hmm.
It is important to remember:
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ColoradoCare is a citizen initiative.
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It was NOT developed by corporations, government employees, or congressmen.
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Citizens created it because your congressmen would not.
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It is NOT “controlled” by the government, congressmen, legislators, health care providers or insurance companies. It is funded seperately and hands off for the legislature.
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It was NOT developed through campaign contributions to your legislators.
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It is NOT big government!
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It is much closer to a coop.
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ColoradoCare will have a steering committee made up of regular citizens; appointed at first then elected. A steering committee of health professionals and consumers.
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Insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and special interests will pour millions of dollars to fight ColoradoCare in an attempt to infuse cultural based ignorance or agnotology.
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Don’t buy their schtick and their attempts to challenge and form your intellect. They are protecting their market share using scare tactics and opinion masquerading as fact.
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Don’t listen to congressmen who are against it. It is in the financial interest of their next campaign to be against ColoradoCare and perhaps that cushy lobbying job post-congress.
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Big corporations profit off political contribution to your congressmen by favorable legislation that benefits the corporation but not necessarily you.
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This is our one chance to control our own healthcare and healthcare costs.
As ColoradoCare gets closer to a vote insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, doctors and healthcare providers will pour millions of dollars into Colorado to defeat ColoradoCare. The same millions they spend to buy your congressmen. Why? To protect a system where they can charge you whatever they want without disclosing the price.
They will tell you they are protecting a free market.
Their congressional puppets, that they give millions of dollars to for reelection, will tell you we need to protect free markets.
Free markets work when people know the price. The muddier they make the water the harder it is to see through. Free market my ass. We need a system that works for us. Under ColoradoCare congressmen, insurance companies, big pharma, and healthcare providers lose their monopoly on price fixing healthcare. And that my friend is something they will pour millions of dollars into protect, millions of dollars in to overcome your logic and intelligence and millions of dollars in to infuse us with culturally based ignorance; agnotology. Many of the people telling us it is a bad deal for Colorado live in 10,000 square foot home and have earnings in the top ten percent. When they spend millions of dollars to convince ColoradoCare is a bad deal, let them know on election day YOU ARE NOT A CHUMP.
People who have not interacted with the healthcare system and truly needed it have no idea how corrupt it is. It is corrupt from top to bottom. ColoradoCare is a fight against legalized corruption and the exploitation of consumers by greedy people exploiting pricing for obscene profit. We make no bones about it. It is a fight for our health care rights and to wrench a corrupt system out of the for-obscene-profit healthcare providers and sold out politicians.
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