Universal Health Care – How We’ll Get There

T.R. Reid is a nationally known journalist, author, and documentary filmmaker who has brought attention to the need for health care reform in America via the PBS Frontline specials “Sick Around the World” and “India: A Second Opinion,” his 2009 book “The Healing of America,” and PBS’ “U.S. Health Care: The Good News,” which features communities such as Grand Junction, Colorado that get health care right—i.e. universally available and affordable. His current book on the U.S. tax code is due out in 2016. Reid served as an international correspondent for the Washington Post, is well known for his light-hearted commentaries on NPR’s Morning Edition, and is in-demand nationally as a speaker and health care expert. His most recent tour of Oregon netted wide media attention for that state’s efforts toward universal health care. Reid serves as a volunteer spokesperson for ColoradoCareYES and as President of the Board of the Directors of the Colorado Foundation for Universal Health Care. DENVER — Colorado is the highest state in the nation — in more ways than one.

     With 52 peaks over 14,000 feet, Colorado has the highest average altitude. And with the nation’s first successful ballot campaign for legalized marijuana, Colorado showed other states how to move beyond the “Reefer Madness” mindset and terminate a fruitless attempt at Prohibition.

    Now Coloradans are pushing ahead on another leading policy initiative — a universal health care system covering every resident. The Secretary of State has certified a proposed initiative for the 2016 ballot that will create a universal cooperative plan called ColoradoCare. That leaves supporters facing two key challenges:

1) The signature drive to get the initiative on the ballot, and

2) The campaign to get it passed.

For both of these efforts, Colorado’s universal coverage advocates need help from Daily Kos readers.

    The efforts of the Colorado Foundation for Universal Health Care and its campaign arm, ColoradoCareYES, are based on a simple proposition: The United States should, and could, provide health care for everybody — but the polarized politicians in Washington, D.C. are not going to get this done.

      Instead, the US will get to universal coverage state-by-state. A couple of states will devise systems — probably single-payer plans — that work, and the other states will follow. This has been the template for some of the most important policy reforms in American history: female suffrage, the minimum wage, progressive income tax, same-sex marriage, etc.

   All of the world’s industrialized democracies provide high-quality health care for everybody — all of them, that is, except the world’s richest country, the USA. ObamaCare has significantly expanded coverage — but it falls well short of the goal. If ObamaCare works perfectly, according to the Congressional Budget Office, it will still leave 31 million people uninsured in 2020 — including some 400,000 in Colorado.

    This is a national disgrace. And Coloradans have decided not to tolerate it any longer.

More below.