February 3, 2008
To the Editor of the Camera:

A great reason to go to Tuesday's caucuses is to vote for the League of Women Voters' single payer resolution.

Disappointing progressives, the 208 Blue Ribbon Commission on Health Care Reform failed to endorse the single payer plan which the League, the Colorado Nurses' Association, the Colorado Education Association, county commissioners, and I and other officeholders support. Undeterred, red-clad single payer advocates "stormed the capitol" on Thursday to rally for real reform.

I lived for two years under single payer systems. When a sting ray lashed my daughter in a remote Costa Rican bay hours from a paved road, we found ten minutes away a tiny rural clinic staffed by a Stanford-trained physician who extracted the poison, ending the pain, gave antibiotics, and sent us off, refusing our pleas to pay for something.

If health care works this well in Costa Rica, why not in Colorado, where some towns are 100 miles from a physician and nearly 800,000 are uninsured?

The Camera offered to let me and my opponent for state senate debate health care in joint op-eds, but he declined. When he ran for governor he did not advocate single payer. He now says he favors it but that federal laws like ERISA pose obstacles. He opposes expanding employer health benefits, as does the Colorado Association for Commerce and Industry, the lobbying organization for big businesses on whose board he served.

I think single payer is doable if we have the will. Since it severs employment from health care, it could survive a federal challenge over conflicts with ERISA employer benefits when the commission’s plan wouldn't.

Single payer will save Colorado businesses $2.34 billion a year. It is the only plan that costs less, by $1.4 billion. The commission’s plan will cost an extra $1.1 billion while insuring 100,000 fewer. Under single payer, health care providers are privately employed, but insurance companies are out of the picture. The 8 percent tax increase to fund it will be more than offset by no insurance premiums.

Colorado has one of the worst insurance reimbursement rates. Boulder faces a surgeon shortage due to low reimbursement. The commission's plan has an "individual mandate" that subsidizes insurance companies. I think it’s time to send them packing.

We need imagination, not defeatism. Not baby steps, but the giant step of universal health care now.

Attend your party's caucus and vote for single payer. As a Camera editorial put it, it’s time for real reform.

Cindy Carlisle