Representatives met today from several diverse groups in the Colorado health care sector, with a goal of reaching a bipartisan solution to the health care problems facing Colorado. The list of partners in the project is long and impressive, including Kaiser Permanente, the National Federation of Independent Business, the Service Employees International Union, the Colorado State Association of Health Underwriters, AARP, the Colorado Medical Society, the Autism Society of Colorado, and an intensive care nurse, among others.
This group is meeting independently from the Blue Ribbon Commission, which is also working towards a solution to the rising cost of health care in Colorado and the ever-increasing number of Coloradans without health insurance.
The group has just come together, so it’s not surprising that they don’t have any solutions yet, but it’s nice to see politically divergent groups at least making an effort towards working together on this issue.
Health care has become such a politically polarized topic that it’s starting to resemble abortion and gay rights. You’re either left or right, Democrat or Republican, “with us or against us.” But what we’re really looking at here are real people with lives and families and expenses and struggles. Somehow or another, they need to have access to health care, and it needs to be financially within reach. This should not be a political issue, and yet it has very much become one. The left cries out for universal coverage, the right champions free-market health care, and all the uninsured and underinsured people fall into the chasm that opens in the middle.
It may be wishful thinking, but I’d really like to see this group succeed. To offer genuine solutions that incorporate the best of everyone’s ideas without regard for political affiliation.
