Colorado’s 208 Commission for Health Care Reform has chosen its four proposals to evaluate. Basically, after a pro-government-medicine biased analysis by some consulting firm, the Commission will recommend one plan to the Colorado legislature. As expected, the selected plans range from awful to disastrous. Lin Zinser has posted a helpful analysis of them to the FIRM blog.

On Sunday, I dashed off the following letter to the commissioners:

Dear 208 Commissioners,

I wish to express my profound disappointment with the Commission’s choice of healthcare reform proposals to evaluate. All four proposals are basically the same: all would significantly increase the already-overwhelming burden of government regulations, mandates, and entitlements in medicine. If implemented, the results would be exactly the same as in other countries and states, i.e. runaway costs, rationing of services, and declining quality. The only difference between these four proposals is the speed with which each would destroy the high quality of medical care now available in Colorado.

You could have chosen to give a serious hearing to something genuinely different, namely the free-market approach of Brian Schwartz’s “FAIR” proposal. Instead, you’ve decided that only plans that inject tons more government force into medicine will be considered.

What a farce.

Diana Hsieh
Sedalia, CO

Obviously, I cannot hope to change the decision of the Commission at this point, but clear and strong opposition can convey the message that their “idealistic” plans for reform would be serious political risk.