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Amendment 69 and ColoradoCare guarantee higher taxes, but not health care
If passed in November, Amendment 69 creates a bureaucracy called ColoradoCare. It will have a larger budget than the entire State of Colorado. Amendment 69 increases the income and payroll tax rates...
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Amendment 69 and ColoradoCare: It does raise income taxes by 10 percent
Judging from some comments on an earlier Complete Colorado column, at least some ColoradoCare supporters are confused about the Amendment 69 tax increases. They think that the Amendment raises payroll...
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Amendment 72: Constitutionally guaranteed revenues for state bureaucracies is...
Amendment 72 supporters claim that raising tobacco taxes will reduce smoking. File photo – Todd Shepherd That’s a smokescreen. What the Amendment really does is create a constitutionally mandated...
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How flawed government health coverage incentives lead to poor quality care
Data from the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF) and the Colorado Hospital Association show that government health programs are not paying their way. Colorado’s Medicaid program pays...
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House Bill 1187: Why should state government get to spend more just because...
A Republican-sponsored bill in the Colorado legislature would likely let state government keep more of your tax money whether it needs it or not. In 2005, Referendum C suspended Colorado’s...
View ArticleTABOR bill sponsor responds to constituents and bows out; says he will vote...
DENVER – One of three Republican sponsors on a bill that would change the way revenue is capped under the Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR) has had a change of heart. Despite the fact supporting TABOR...
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Senate Bill 267: Saving rural Colorado with even more debt and taxes
Senate Bill 17-267 would make Colorado’s state budget less transparent, reduce legislative and taxpayer control over state spending, create two new slush funds outside of legislative control, increase...
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We don’t need ObamaCare to cover those with pre-existing conditions
There are many ways to provide medical care for people with pre-existing conditions. Real world experience shows that some work better than others. Properly structured stand-alone high risk pools and...
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Book Review: Myth Busters, Why Health Reform Always Goes Awry
In a new book aimed at anyone who wants to have the knowledge to evaluate what people are saying in the state and national health care debates, nationally known health policy expert Greg Scandlen...
View ArticleDissent to Colorado Commission on Affordable Health Care Reports and...
(Editor’s note: The following is the minority dissent to the Colorado Commission on Affordable Health Care Reports and Recommendations to the General Assembly. This dissent is authored by Linda...
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Why Congress should reform the False Claims Act
In a new Independence Institute working paper on the use and misuse of the False Claims Act (FCA), attorneys Mark W. Pearlstein and Laura McLane explain how an 1863 statute written to expose and punish...
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Trio of health transparency bills bad medicine for Colorado
A century of evidence shows that when government officials start detailing how private companies must run their business, competition usually decreases while costs and bureaucracy increase. Even when...
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Colorado to see multi-billion dollar windfall from Trump tax cuts
Thanks to the Trump tax cuts, Colorado state government is getting a giant tax windfall. Preliminary estimates from the Legislative Council Staff suggest that the elimination of state and local tax...
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Take a look at the data for health policy that works
When a policy generating a lot of fame and fortune starts to go wrong, the temptation to ignore new data can be irresistible. For over 50 years, mainstream US health policy makers have promoted...
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Amendment 73 by the Numbers: Colorado school spending basics
(Click to enlarge) Amendment 73 would increase spending on public schools by at least $1.6 billion a year. Proponents say it is needed because Colorado school spending never recovered from the Great...
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Amendment 73 by the Numbers: School spending and achievement
(Click to enlarge) At current spending levels, what schools do is far more important than how much they spend. Amendment 73 pumps more money into existing school systems. Data from the last 30 years...
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Hold the pricing hysteria: US hospital prices are about the same as Canada’s
Using a rallying cry of “It’s the prices, stupid!” the same people who used Obamacare to make health insurance unaffordable and vastly expand public spending on Medicaid for healthy people now want to...
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Gorman: House Bill 1269 a blank check for mental health industry
If you think your health coverage costs a lot now, just wait until Colorado state government finishes legislating parity for “behavioral, mental health, and substance use disorders.” House Bill 19-1269...
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Gorman: Polis thinks voters were wrong, resurrects ridiculously high tobacco tax
Activists are activists because they never take no for an answer. Especially when voters shoot down a tax increase, denying them the big pot of other people’s money that they had planned to spend on...
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Gorman: Pandemic exposes problems with obese health bureaucracies
While it is too early to assess the performance of the U.S. medical system’s coronavirus response as a whole, public sector performance has been disappointing. The CDC’s testing failure and its early...
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