On the ballot this November: ColoradoCare! http://www.coloradocare.org/

Finally, sanity. ColoradoCare eliminates the excessive costs and hassle for patients and their families, providers, businesses, employers, employees and entrepreneurs by eliminating the unnecessary middle man from our dysfunctional and unsustainable for profit health care insurance-based payment system and so much more.


Based on need not greed. Designed by Coloradans for Coloradans and run by elected citizens for all Coloradans. ColoradoCare provides universal health care (not insurance) for every Coloradan via a non-governmental, not-for-profit health care payment cooperative owned by the citizens of Colorado. Health care based on need for services rather than ability to pay. Good concept!

The concept is simple. Constitutional amendment #69 transfers specific taxing authority at a limited percentage plus all health care payments to the state such as Medicaid and Children’s Basic Health Care to a non-profit, non-governmental cooperative managed by 21 elected Coloradans acting as trustees. ColoradoCare pays almost all Coloradans health care bills. ColoradoCare's uses dramatically increased market power to negotiate prices. while covering every resident, and providing better performance.

The trifecta. ColoradoCare realizes the trifecta of improved coverage, improved quality of care, plus vast savings overall - estimated at $4.5 billion – and for most families, thousands of dollars. Truly universal: covers every resident, including the remaining 400,000 uninsured Coloradans. Patients choose their primary care providers from all providers, not a small network.

Full-spectrum benefits. The Colorado Constitution is amended creating a mandate for ColoradoCare to provide: (I) Ambulatory patient services, including primary and specialty care; (II) Hospitalization; (III) Prescription drugs and durable medical equipment; (IV) Mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment; (V) Emergency and urgent care; (VI) Preventive and wellness services and chronic disease management; (VII) Rehabilitative services; (VIII) Pediatric services, including oral, vision, and hearing care; (IX) Lab services; (X) Maternity care; and (XI) Palliative and end-of-life care. Substantial funds should be available for dental, vision, and hearing benefits, a boon to everyone.

The industry must compete for our patronage. For the first time in the US, Colorado patients use group buying power in the market for health care services to negotiate favorable prices. You see, providers, even specialists, and drug companies are actually “consumers” of patients. If they want to fill a hospital or practice with patients, they must now compete for patients under ColoradoCare rules. They must play ball play ball by our rules instead of we patients playing by their rules. For providers in Colorado, ColoradoCare is practically the only game in town. Coloradans, through ColoradoCare, call the shots. That is the way it is supposed to be in a consumer driven economy and not the other way around, an inversion of economic order that we have become used to for far too long!

Eliminates conflicts of interest. ColoradoCare realizes savings by taking for profit insurance companies out of decisions on patient care and the physician payment loop. No more administration by for profit insurance companies whose first priority is to maximize their profits by gipping providers and rationing patient care. A slight conflict, no?
Better for patients, of course. ColoradoCare features zero deductible, no dollar limit, comprehensive cradle to grave health care, from prenatal care to palliative and end of life care and everything in between (including approved dental, mental health, alternative, homeopathic and other health benefits) for all Colorado citizens. Wherever they may find themselves in need. Even if they happen to be working out of state.

More freedom for everyone. We Coloradans love freedom! Coloradans are now free to get well and families are now free to help their loved ones get well – rather than worry over stacks of bills, fuss over benefits and reimbursements or wind up in medical bankruptcy. And you choose your providers, not the insurance company based first and foremost on their costs and profits. Moreover, ColoradoCare uncouples health care from employment forever! No more having to keep a job you are not into or delay realizing your entrepreneurial aspirations just so you/your spouse and/or children can have health insurance and won't possibly die if they get sick or injured! 

Better for providers too. Allows doctors and others to practice without anti-patient-wellness constraints imposed by the for-profit insurance oligopoly. Providers will be also more profitable through the elimination of lowballing by insurers and unreimbursed care, and the benefits of faster, centralized reimbursement. And just like every business in the Colorado, medical practices will also benefit from the elimination of in-house insurance administration operations and staff, increased benefit cost uncertainty and the general hassle of having to provide insurance benefits for their own employees and staff at ever escalating rates.

Better for employers and the economy. ColoradoCare is incredibly attractive to employers and will definitely help grow the Colorado economy. By and estimated more than 31,000 jobs. More businesses should come to Colorado because there is not just lower benefit cost, but more cost certainty. Employers' costs are capped at 6.6% of payroll, and cannot be increased without a vote of a majority of Coloradans. Employers would no longer face spiraling insurance premiums for fewer benefits to employees and will no longer have the annual burden of distributing new literature and enrolling employees. Life in human resource departments will be so much better! 

Great for entrepreneurs and self-employed. ColoradoCare is a dream for start-ups: no longer must proprietors get sidetracked about providing health insurance and by all the worry and excessive cost. This also dramatially levels the playing field for business trying to attract the best and brightest talent. Workers in the new gig economy will not be hung out to dry without coverage when cash flow cannot support premium payments in between gigs.

Better networks. Networks may still compete as a health superstores, not as an insurer with a captive group of doctors and patients to gouge ... no more double dipping networks with their bloated administrative functions and claim denial operations. 
Better tech. ColoradoCare can implement the latest technological advances to in use today. For example, smart card technology can be utilized so that patient records become portable - the records will pop up on the provider's information system when the card is inserted into the provider's reader. Smart card technology also allows providers to bill ColoradoCare in real time for rapid payment.

Replaces Colorado Health Care Exchange (Obamacare). Authorized by the ACA, ColoradoCare is the coveted public option. ColoradoCare gets a $5 billion grant under the ACA just for starters. It replaces replaces for profit health care and Connect for Health Colorado (the exchange).

Does not disrupt Medicare, Tri-Care and PERAcare. Improves upon on but does not disrupt Medicare and Tri-Care. It is intended that Medicare Advantage, currently a drag on Medicare, will be subsumed in ColoradoCare, which would to become the Medicare Advantage provider for Coloradans. ColoradoCare would continue all Medicare benefits, and in addition, ColoradoCare would provide a Medicare Supplemental Plan that eliminates deductibles and waives copayments for financial hardship. Right now, so many seniors cannot afford Medicare deductible, copayment, and Supplemental Plan costs, and Medicare covers little in the way of vision, hearing, and dental. PERA beneficiaries who are not on Medicare would no longer need to purchase a health care plan because ColoradoCare would fully cover them. PERA beneficiaries who are on Medicare would no longer need to purchase a Medicare Supplemental Plan because ColoradoCare would provide one.

Conceived by Providers and Experts. ColoradoCare is the brainchild of Dr. Irene Aguilar, who has been working on this since the ACA passed. Also on board: Mr. T.R. Reid, http://www.coloradocare.org/videos/health care scholar, author, and producer of the must see PBS Frontline documentary Sick Around the World, and Senator Jeanne Nicholson, a knowledgeable and influential former nurse, state senator and senior.

Colorado will lead the nation in health care. ColoradoCare, America's health care system of the future instead of yesterday's clunky health insurance system that rations care based on ability to pay and the exploitation of providers and patients in order to make a buck.

Vote yes in November, and ColoradoCare is the law!