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Dear Editor,
Soon Colorado citizens will decide whether to support the current insurance system or muster the courage to change the entire system.
The Colorado Medical Society has been dedicated to advancing the profession of medicine and to caring for the people of Colorado. In 2006, the CMS House of Delegates recognized that: “The health care system in Colorado is broken and the entire system needs to be reformed. Working only on one part will cause problems in other areas.” The delegates then approved the CMS Guiding Principles of Health System Reform:
- Coverage- Health care coverage for Coloradans should be universal, portable, and mandatory.
- Benefits- An essential benefits package should be uniform, with an option to obtain additional benefits.
- Delivery system- The system must ensure choice of physician and preserve the patient/physician relationships. The system must focus on providing care that is safe, timely, efficient, patient-centered, and equitable.
- Administration and governance- The system must be simple, transparent, accountable, efficient, and effective in order to reduce administrative costs and maximize funding for patient care. The system should be overseen by a governing body that includes regulatory agencies, payers, consumers, and care givers and that is accountable to the citizens.
- Financing- Health care coverage should be equitable, affordable, and sustainable. The financing strategy should strive for simplicity, transparency, and efficiency. It should emphasize personal responsibility as well as societal obligations due to the limited nature of resources available for health care.
We believe that ColoradoCare, Amendment 69, can achieve the principles listed above, and will replace the present adversarial relationship between physicians and insurers. ColoradoCare will improve health care across the state via a working health care system in Colorado that benefits both patients and providers. Please vote yes for ColoradoCare, Amendment 69, on Nov. 8.
Sincerely,
Ben Vernon MD, FACS, past president of the Colorado Medical Society
Laird Cagan MD, FACP, past president of the Boulder Medical Society and Physicians for ColoradoCare co-chair
Mark Matthews MD FACP, Physicians for ColoradoCare co-chair
This says it all. The CMS may not endorse Amendment 69 ColoradoCare, but their criteria do. And many Colorado physicians will be joining Doctors Vernon, Cagan and Matthews in voting for it, because it's good for their patients and the practice of medicine. They and their patients will benefit from ColoradoCare's emphasis on wellness, prevention, and support for expanding effective innovation, such as patient-centered medical homes.
Yes, Colorado care will offer EVERY Coloradan affordable care. We will see the end of 600 uninsured Coloradans dying and thousands of underinsured Coloradans in Medical Bankruptcy every year, like we do now.
The choice is quite simple, we either continue in a system that regularly denies services and medications to maintain profits that sustain $20 million CEO bonuses, or we go to a system where we finally put LIVES AHEAD OF CORPORATE PROFITS!!
This is like a breath of fresh air amid the sea of unthinking negativism I have been seeing in the media, particularly since Charles and David Koch had their recent meeting with wealthy out-of-state donors in Colorado Springs.
The vitriol that has sprung from that is a clear effort to obfuscate the reform objective of ColoradoCare, which is to replace the for-profit insurance companies as the payer for health care for Coloradans. That would effectively substitute a patient-centered health care system for our current, broken system in which patients are effectively a means of making a profit for the stockholders of the giant health insurance industry.
The favorite argument made by the opponents of ColoradoCare is that the 10% premium tax, shared by employers(6.67%) and employees (3.33%) amounts to a "massive" tax increase that makes Colorado one of the "highest taxed states in the union". They always conveniently omit the fact that the premium tax is not a new tax that we have to pay on top of everything else, but REPLACES what we currently spend on health care, i.e. premiums, deductibles, copays and out-of-pocket expenses. They omit the fact that 80% of Coloradans will pay LESS with the premium tax that they are currently paying for their health care!
I am a senior on Medicare. ColoradoCare will save my husband and me about $400.00 per month by providing a quality Medicare Supplement plan in place of the private plan we are forced to buy right now to cover the 20% that Medicare does not pay. We would be grateful for that, as the premiums go up every year. We will definitely be voting YES on Amendment 69 on November 8th, and would encourage all Coloradans to do the same
I am delighted that these physicians are expressing their support for ColoradoCare. That caring, compassionate, thoughtful health care professionals are backing this plan to cover all Coloradans with high quality, affordable health care means a lot.
Our health care system is in chaos, and we need to make a change – NOW. ColoradoCare is the answer to a system in crisis.