Amendment 69 is a ballot issue everyone should be able to support: Conservatives will have an opportunity to vote Obamacare out of Colorado and liberals will be able to vote for universal health care for all Coloradans. The losers will be the insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

While Jackie Caudill’s letter to the editor (Herald, Aug. 10) correctly referenced several parts of the proposed amendment, she made badly skewed interpretations of them. She wrote that “ColoradoCare is not health insurance as some people perceive it to be.” In fact, it absolutely is not insurance! Coloradans will be paying directly for quality medical care without money diverted through a parasitic insurance industry that sucks 20 percent of it for administrative bureaucracy and profit. Those savings will be used to increase provider reimbursement which in turn will attract high quality providers to the plan.

Another point Caudill made was that the state “will no longer have control over how the money is spent.” Exactly! The plan was carefully crafted to separate ColoradoCare from government finagling. Legislators, the governor and lobbyists will not be able to subvert the program. Instead, ColoradoCare will be member-owned by the citizens of Colorado and administered by a board of trustees, each locally elected. The program will be accountable to patients and providers, not insurance companies.

She said Amendment 69 will raise “the state taxes to the highest in our nation.” Do the math to see how much you will save.

ColoradoCare will replace nearly all your medical costs; no more medical insurance premiums, no more deductibles and expensive prescription drugs, and your tax increase will only be 3.33 percent of your pay. Calculate your savings and decide.

If Amendment 69 is voted down, premiums will keep going up, deductibles will keep going up, benefits will keep going down and only the health insurance industry will benefit. Vote “yes” for Colorado and Amendment 69.

The chief medical architect of ColoradoCare, state Sen. Irene Aguilar, MD, will be coming to Durango to present “Understanding Amendment 69” at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 1, at the Durango Public Library.

Harry Riegle

Durango