Sign the petition to voice your opposition to Rate-setting in Healthcare

We the undersigned side with seniors over big insurance companies and their lobbyists. We oppose healthcare rate-setting in Colorado and everywhere else. It's bad for doctors. It's bad for patients. It's bad for seniors in Colorado.

Rate-Setting is Bad for Doctors, Patients, Healthcare, & Seniors

The Issue

Colorado is just the latest example of liberals trying to socialize medicine through price controls and rate-setting. If House Bill 1232 is passed, the Commissioner of Insurance would mandate prices in healthcare based on arbitrary numbers decided by politicians, not doctors or other medical experts.

Government price controls have proven to be a disaster wherever they have been tried. Rate-setting by politicians and bureaucrats might be good for the bottom line of big insurance companies and their lobbyists, but they are bad news for the rest of patients—especially seniors.

Take, for example, Maryland, which since the 1970s has set the prices that hospitals can charge for medical care, known as Maryland’s All-Payer System (MAPS). The federal government have to heavily subsidize the cost of the care gap to prevent hospitals from closing under the system. That is to say, in order to make the Maryland system work, the state robs the Medicare Trust Fund—and it’s to the tune of $20 billion a year!

Some Colorado lawmakers have advocated for implementing a modified version of Maryland’s system, but Colorado wouldn’t have the federal subsidies to protect doctors and patients. The people pointing to Maryland don’t seem to understand that the MAPS system doesn’t work without subsidies. Therefore, it would be only a matter of time before draconian measures like healthcare rationing would have to be implemented in Colorado.

What Americans need to know about rate-setting

• The National Implications of Maryland’s All-Payer System

• Maryland's Health Care Price Controls Aren't Solving Problems—They're Creating Them

• 'Medicare for All': The hype v. Maryland's reality

• The All-Payer Rate Setting Model for Pricing Medical Services and Drugs

• Provider groups slam rate setting in House surprise billing draft legislation

• Growing National Healthcare Coalition Urges Congress to Reject Bureaucratic Price Controls in Next Relief Bill

• Conservative lawmakers warn Pelosi about 'rate-setting' surprise billing fix

What United Seniors for America Is Doing about It

United Seniors for America is launching an aggressive grassroots campaign with Colorado seniors. H.B. 1232 needs to be defeated. No politician should choose greedy insurance companies over Colorado seniors. That is literally the choice that lawmakers face. And we will make this clear to all Coloradans.