Taking one for the team?

[Sindawe]

It has been said that the "States are laboratories of democracy" that can test social and economic ideas with reduced risk to the rest of the nation.  Several years ago Colorado followed that path with Amendment 64 to legalize and regulate the sale of marijuana to adults for non-medical use.  So far its turned out fairly well with the state collecting a nice chunk of change in taxes, jobs in Cannabis manufacturing and retail being created and some of the stigma being reduced for adults taking part in a peaceful activity in the privacy of their homes.  There have been hick-ups of course (we've has ANOTHER recall due to banned pesticides being found in some products) but no major disasters as the anti-64 folks were predicting.

Now my home state may have another opportunity to be a laboratory.  This time with universal single-payer health care.

http://www.healthcareforallcolorado.org/

I'm not overly fond of the idea myself (and don't like an additional 9% tax on my wages) since I'd much rather treat health insurance like auto insurance.  Carry the policy for the major stuff, routine maintenance and minor repairs are the duty of the owner/operator.  I strongly suspect if it passes Colorado will another influx of people moving to the state, like with did with people who moved here to "work in the pot industry" with no real clue about what it take to get badged or actually work in a real job (be on time, don't show up to work baked, don't get baked on the job, etc...).

I am however considering casting my vote (if it makes it to the ballot) in support as my "civic duty" to the rest of the nation and being part of this experiment.  If it work out well, it may aid other states in considering such to address the failings of Obama Care.  If it works out badly, it will again aid the other states as a cautionary tale of where to NOT go.
 

[vaskidmark]

Maybe I need to do more reading, but I can't see any difference between this and the NHS schemes in Britain and Canada.  Or the states that have mandated "no fault" auto insurance.

Mediocrity for all might be OK if all that was needed was mediocre care.  Unfortunately that's never going to be the case.  Life is bottom heavy, and the bottom has a need for more than "middle of the road" levels of care.

stay safe. 

[brimic]

Infinite needs meet finite resources... with the taxpayer footing the bill for the economic fiasco that is certain to follow.

[Fly320s]

I haven't seen too many examples of socialists trying to stop being socialists.  They will keep trying no matter how many times they fail.

[Perd Hapley]

I haven't seen too many examples of socialists trying to stop being socialists.  They will keep trying no matter how many times they fail.

Correct.

[Ron]

It isn't a win if it works in conjunction with federal subsidies.

[Pb]

Every economic system of any type has to prevent people from consuming all that they want, to prevent resources from being used up, in this case health care.

Under single payer healthcare, the gov will forcibly limit use, or go bankrupt.  They typically use some combination of the following:

1) rationing care
2) long waits
3) terrible quality care

I wonder what CO will use?

Vermont was going to try single payer, but cancelled after they realized they could never pay for it.

[Monkeyleg]

Every economic system of any type has to prevent people from consuming all that they want, to prevent resources from being used up, in this case health care.

Under single payer healthcare, the gov will forcibly limit use, or go bankrupt.  They typically use some combination of the following:

1) rationing care
2) long waits
3) terrible quality care

I wonder what CO will use?

Vermont was going to try single payer, but cancelled after they realized they could never pay for it.

As I've mentioned before, I'm having surgery in January. There's a forum for this type of surgery, and on the forum is a guy from Canada. He's been jumping through the Canadian government's hoops on getting this surgery for about 4 years.. They required him to see one doctor, then another type of doctor, then another, then another. He finally decided to pay out of his own pocket and is having the surgery done here in the US by a top-flight surgeon.

My dad had quintuple bypass surgery at age 73. He was really big on socialized medicine, even when I explained to him that he would have been denied that surgery under the Canadian and British systems.