In an unprecedented move, Colorado may become the first state to replace Obama Care with a single-payer health insurance plan that would guarantee coverage for all of the state's residents.

This November, voters in Colorado will decide whether to keep the Affordable Health Care Act or give it the boot and usher in a single-payer, state-wide health coverage plan. The $38 billion-a-year measure proposed by the organization ColoradoCare would largely be funded by tax increases.

A 10 percent hike on payroll tax would break down into 6.7 percent for employers and 3.3 percent for workers. An additional 10 percent would be levied on self-employed workers. The 10 percent tax hike would also apply to investment income and small business income.

If passed, ColoradoCare would cover all state residents and allow them to choose doctors and specialists without distinguishing between "in network" and "out of network." The plan also would eliminate deductibles.

Insurance groups and the Colorado Chamber of Commerce along with members of the medical and business fields are rallying against the plan. Opponents argue the plan's details are too vague and its cost threatens to cripple the state economy.

According to the New York Times, the plan requires a budget bigger than that of the entire state government's economy. The 10 percent payroll tax also would put Colorado's tax rate among the highest in the nation.

Still, some residents are optimistic about the plan. After all, they live in a state where voters supported Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton by more than 20 percent during the Colorado primary. Sanders is proposing a similar "Medicare for All" measure at the national level.

Some say they're still paying too much in premiums along with thousands in deductibles even with Obama Care.

"No matter how long we hang in there with the Affordable Care Act, we will never cover everybody," said Jeanne Nicholson, a former Democratic state senator who supports universal health care. "We don't understand why we should compromise and say some people can have bronze coverage, some can have silver and some can have gold. Why can't we all have platinum plus?"

Although unprecedented in the US, a single payer health care system in which a public or quasi-public entity manages health care financing is not unheard of elsewhere. Several developed countries including the UK, Canada and Brazil have these systems.
http://sputniknews.com/us/20160502/1038934461/colorado-may-replace-obamacare-public-universal-health-care-option.html

Obama-Care was devised to push the Single-Payer-Option,nothing else!
Singlepayer is about the worst Healthsystem in the known Universe!
The Politicians will still making the Medical Decisions,not the Medical Doctors!
and the Systems in those "Developed" Countries are sorely lacking!
It is,however,a convenient Slushfund for all sorts of Looters!

i guess i should read up on it more, because it sounds like a better deal... for starters, there won't be a law saying they have to join, because it is a tax increase, which everyone pays regardless...

This sounds nice and yet if I remember correctly
City law, country laws, state law. and federal law..
And Obama care if Federal so wouldn 't that supercede the state law??

weed is a federal crime, but legal in Colorado...

It is still "Obamacare". Obama care requires you to be insured and what coverage you need to be compliant. Insurance providers determine cost based on deductibles, age and location. To say they are getting "rid" of it is not accurate..in fact they are expanding it by in essence making everyone buy the highest cost(Gold plan)coverage through higher tax payments.
Since "Obamacare" is a Fed mandate, a state can not "get rid of it" but can offer a plan that meets or exceeds the requirements of the AHC.

It's only "legal" in Colorado because the Feds are not enforcing the Fed statutes. The Feds could go in and raid any Head shop in CO. and bring federal charges against them any time they want for dealing a controlled substance.

" Politicians will still making the Medical Decisions,not the Medical Doctors!"

God forbid. I have had lots of times I couldn't get a Rx filled, because of coverage. The worst, was spending 14 hrs in ER & then going to a pharmacy, only to have them say, I couldn't have 3 pills to break up my kidney stones... Because, I am a woman & my coverage only pays for men to have the drug. So I suffered for days.
But according to my insurance, a woman's suffering is less.

And yes as it is in Alaska now.
The Fed's position is they are choosing to ignore...
Doesn't change the law the federal law.

so just curious how the Fed's will react

I can bet that if Cruz is ever elected, he will crack down on selling pot in Alaska and Co.

* "Opponents argue the plan's details are too vague and its cost threatens to cripple the state economy."

** Canada Medicare was born in Saskatchewan on July 1, 1962. Population 1 mil.. By the Provincial Government Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) led by T.C. (Tommy) Douglas
* CCF was sorta, Canada Communist

* "The local medical hierarchy in 1960 took much of their advice from outsiders and adopted tactics which had proved successful in many similar campaigns in the United States."


The Birth of Medicare
https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/the-birth-of-medicare

It is required now, as far as blackmail / incentive. If you don't pay for it you are fined.
Most of the adults I know do not have ANY coverage. They can not afford Obamacare with kids under 18. And they make too much for welfare. So they pay the fine & suffer.

* Doctors do love the guaranteed payments.
* Federal Government "bulk" negotiates medicine price / Easy

No bet...
Trump gets in it will be ran more like a business look out taxes

By Richard Knox, NPR

Federal regulators this month opened a new era in the treatment of a deadly liver virus that infects three to five times more people than HIV. Now the question is: Who will get access to the new drug for hepatitis C, and when?

The drug Sovaldi will cost $1,000 per pill. A typical course of treatment will last 12 weeks and run $84,000, plus the cost of necessary companion drugs. Some patients may need treatment for twice as long.

Hepatitis researchers call the drug a landmark in the treatment of this deadly infection. More than 90 percent of patients who get the new drug can expect to be cured of their hepatitis C infection, with few side effects.

Curing hepatitis C has been difficult, involving regimens that don't work as well as the new option and bring harsh side effects.

More than 3 million Americans are infected with hepatitis C, and perhaps 170 million people have the disease worldwide. By comparison, about 1.1 million Americans have HIV, which has infected about 34 million people globally.

What Will It Cost?

The drug company Gilead Sciences Inc. of Foster City, Calif., manufactures Sovaldi. And some activists are beginning to complain about the company's decision to charge so much for the drug. "For Gilead, we have outrage, pure and simple," Michael Weinstein of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation told Business Wire.

But Gregg Alton, a vice president at Gilead, says the high price is fully justified. "We didn't really say, 'We want to charge $1,000 a pill,' " Alton says. "We're just looking at what we think was a fair price for the value that we're bringing into the health care system and to the patients."

But Andrew Hill, a researcher in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the University of Liverpool, says $84,000 per cure is too much, based on his estimate of Gilead's cost to produce the drug.

"Even when we were very conservative [with our estimate], the cost of a course of these treatments would be on the order of $150 to $250 per person," Hill says. He questions whether the $84,000 price tag represents "a fair profit."

Hill estimated the cost of producing Sovaldi by comparing it to similar antiviral drugs used to treat HIV, which cost about a $1 per gram to make.
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"The amazing thing with hep C is you only need a few grams of these drugs to cure the infection," Hill says. "You need 10 grams or 30 grams of drugs."

Hepatitis C Vs. HIV

There are some interesting parallels between the new hepatitis C drugs (Sovaldi and others in the pipeline) and the antiviral drugs that came out 20 years ago to treat HIV. Both classes of drugs were initially very pricey. Both revolutionized the treatment of chronic, lethal infections that are major global health problems.

But there are big differences. First, hepatitis C is actually a much bigger public health threat than HIV — a fact that has received little attention. Secondly, the new hepatitis C drugs can eliminate the virus completely — once it's gone, people are cured. Drugs against HIV just suppress the virus, so must be taken for a lifetime.

Given that latter point, Dr. Camilla Graham of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston thinks that the high cost of the new hepatitis C treatments might be justified.

"Maybe we decide that $100,000 is a worthwhile investment to cure someone of an otherwise devastating chronic infection," Graham says. After all, it can now cost up to $300,000 to treat patients with advanced hepatitis C, using less effective and more harrowing regimens.

Graham is a hep-C specialist. So she knows firsthand how the slow-moving virus kills patients by destroying their livers and causing liver cancer. The virus is the main reason that nearly 17,000 Americans are waiting for a liver transplant.

yea but, the ones from India are Curry flavored

As to the Colorado medical bill ... I think the States should do whatever they want and the Feds should stay out of the medical industry except for special cases like military.

I think it is a good idea for States to try things so the rest of the States can learn from others... good and bad.

On the minus side, I think it may bankrupt the State.

Won't have to worry about that now will we...