Dear Editor:

Your article on the financing of ColoradoCare published on Aug. 10 raised questions about the proposed health care plan. While it makes some fair points, it ignores the larger cost conundrum at stake for Colorado and the United States.

Health care costs keep going up thanks to a long list of factors. They include a lack of emphasis on preventative care, insurance company middlemen, almost no price transparency and the happy march of medical innovation. These are important issues to address, and ColoradoCare tackles three of them. Using a Medicare-like model, it will cover every state resident under an easy-to-use, comprehensive health plan that follows you through life for the same amount of money we’re paying now or less.

Opponents, meanwhile, are fixated on an academic argument between the Amendment 69 campaign and the Colorado Health Institute over whether the operating deficit would be non-existent or merely trivial. But that’s a distraction. However we vote in November, we’ll have to deal with future cost increases. Private insurance premiums will continue to increase on an annual basis, as they do now. The question is this: Do we want to tackle this problem using ColoradoCare, a cheaper and more efficient system under our control? Or should we turn once again to private insurance companies? Judging by the millions they’ve contributed to the ColoradoCare opposition, they seem eager to fail us again.

Marshall A. Martin, Grand Junction