Colorado鈥檚 ballot battle over health care may be the first of many
Earlier this month, voters across the country decided a聽聽that affect both the services they receive and the taxes they pay. The most important probably occurred in Colorado, where voters overwhelmingly rejected a major tax increase aimed at funding an ambitious new state health program.聽With president-elect Trump and a Republican Congress likely to reduce the federal role in health care, the Colorado battle may be just the first of many.
Voters in the Rocky Mountain state sorted through no fewer than nine ballot measures earlier this month. In the end, they聽,听, and approved three measures that changed voting rules. They rejected both a tobacco tax hike and exempting some small leaseholders of government land from property tax.
But they聽聽the most significant initiative:聽, that would have created the nation鈥檚 first universal healthcare system, financed by a new 10 percent income tax. Almost 80 percent of Coloradans voted no.
ColoradoCare would have been a state-run single-payer health care system. It would have been by financed by a new 10 percent tax on most income. Two-thirds of the portion applied to wages would have been paid by employers and one-third by workers, though economists generally believe that the employer share of any payroll tax is eventually passed on to employees in the form of lower wages.
The initiative would have both vastly expanded the size of state government and doubled the amount of state taxes collected. It would have introduced a program with聽聽that, when fully in place, would have been about one-third larger than the state鈥檚 current聽聽(so it would have more than doubled the total size of state government).
Proponents argued that a single-payer system would help restrain medical costs and ensure coverage for聽all. It鈥檚 unclear whether voters objected to the single-payer system, the program鈥檚 cost, or its effect on Colorado鈥檚 business environment. Or all of the above.
Single-payer health care and a big tax increase were always going to be a tough sell in tax-conscious Colorado. After all, it is the home of constitutional limits on how much state taxes can grow (the Taxpayer Bill of Rights or聽) and on how revenues are allocated. Indeed, the expansion needed to happen at the ballot box as it required an exemption聽from the TABOR rules.
But voters overwhelmingly rejected the idea of paying higher taxes for better access to health care. That is especially interesting given what are likely to be major changes Washington may make in the next few years to the federal-state relationship, especially in health care. President-elect Trump and congressional Republicans are preparing to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, including its expansion of Medicaid. They may also consider ways to cap the federal contribution to Medicaid, the joint state-federal health program for low-income mothers and children, people with disabilities, and the frail elderly. Those changes will give states new flexibility, but the price may be more responsibility as federal funding lags rising costs. 聽
In that environment, don鈥檛 be surprised to see voters in other states struggle in the coming years with the trade-off between health costs and taxes.
This story originally appeared on .
