Yes on Amendment 63: Stand up to D.C. on health care choice - The Denver Post

Yes on Amendment 63: Stand up to D.C. on health care choice

By Jon Caldara and Linda Gorman
Posted: 10/03/2010 01:00:00 AM MDT


Stop D.C. Yes on 63.

Washington went too far when it passed health care reform this year. While the voters of Colorado can't change federal law, we can amend Colorado's constitutional Bill of Rights to guarantee a right to health care choice and to stand up to D.C.

Amendment 63 — the Health Care Choice Amendment — makes certain that state officials cannot force you to buy a health insurance product you do not want, from a large corporation that you may not like, at a price that you may not be able to afford.

The amendment does three clear and unambiguous things:

• It guarantees that the state of Colorado cannot force you to participate in a health plan against your will.

• It guarantees that you have the right to spend your own money on lawful health care.

• It prevents the state from using your tax money to enforce federal laws that interfere with these rights. In this, Amendment 63 sends a strong message to politicians in Washington, D.C.

There are three reasons why the Colorado Constitution needs to be amended to protect your rights.

First, it is wrong for government to mandate that people buy a product simply because they are alive. Even mandates to buy car insurance apply only if you own a car and drive it on public roads.

Health insurance mandates require that you buy health services before you buy anything else, whether you want to or not. Food, housing, clothing and transportation all come second. Mandates raise the cost of health care by forcing you to use health insurance to pay for routine health care expenses.

Amendment 63 lowers health care costs by outlawing mandates. Coloradans already know that they can reduce their overall health care bill by buying health insurance policies that have higher deductibles and by paying cash for routine services. Everyone saves money when you pay your doctor directly rather than making him submit a bill to a bureaucratic insurance company.

For example, the cash price for a mammogram at one Denver provider was $135. It was $235 when billed to an insurance company.

People who oppose Amendment 63 claim that health insurance mandates somehow lower health costs. They say mandates reduce costs by forcing people into the insurance pool at gunpoint.

Data from the Colorado Blue Ribbon Commission on Health Care Reform show they are wrong. It found that for 2007, the estimated cost of uncompensated care for the uninsured in Colorado was $85 per insured person per year. The commission found that forcing everyone into the insurance pool would require an additional $3 billion a year in state spending because people who couldn't afford mandated health insurance would have to be given taxpayer-funded subsidies so that they could buy it.

With mandates, your premium costs would fall by $85 per insured person, but your taxes would go up by $1,071 per insured person.

Second, Amendment 63 would stop a future state legislature from doing what Massachusetts did: making it illegal to buy the insurance you want, and forcing you to buy the insurance that a group of bureaucratic elitists say you should have. Even better, it stops a future legislature from doing what Canadian provinces did: taking over all health care and forcing everyone to buy health care from the state government at whatever price it dictates.

Under Amendment 63, the Colorado legislature can set up voluntary public health plans just like it does now (63 does not affect voluntary programs such as Medicaid, CHP+, and Medicare).

Third, Amendment 63 protects your right to spend your own money on the health care that you want or need. You can do this in Colorado now, but what will politicians do to you in the future? In most of Canada, doctors are prohibited from accepting patients' money for covered health services. Amendment 63 guarantees you will always have the right to purchase health care from a willing provider.

Under 63, Colorado will become a safe haven for private health care providers, clinics, hospitals and alternative medicine. And that means jobs, and economic development, along with health care choice.

For us, the rights protected by Amendment 63 are literally a matter of life or death. Jon Caldara's son, Chance, is a special needs child. He has endured 10 operations in six years of life. He is alive because he had timely access to advanced medical care. Without Amendment 63's constitutional protections, future bureaucrats could place the medical care that Chance needs far beyond his reach.

Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute. Linda Gorman is director of the Institute's health care policy center. For more information, see Amendment63.org.


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