Initiative about fighting health-care reforms, future changes

Largely due to the help of paid professional signature gatherers, Colorado voters in November will probably see a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot related to health care.

“Game on,” said Jon Caldara, president of the fiscally conservative Independence Institute, after his group last week turned in more than 130,000 signatures to the Secretary of State’s Office. Although the office must certify the petitions, the nonprofit has well in excess of the roughly 76,000 valid signatures needed to get on the ballot.

Political observers say the proposed constitutional amendment – even if approved by voters – won’t be a game-changer at all. “This is a nice public relations stunt but it’s not likely to have any more effect than that,” said Bob Loevy, professor of political science at Colorado College.

“The U.S. Constitution contains a supremacy clause,” he explained. ”The chance that you can use an initiated state law or constitutional amendment to reverse a law of Congress is highly unlikely.”

The Independence Institute began pushing its “Right to Health Care Choice” ballot initiative in the spring. If approved by voters, it would add language to the Colorado Constitution prohibiting the state from forcing citizens to purchase public or private health insurance or passing new laws that would block patients from paying out-of-pocket for their own medical care.

The Golden-based organization began circulating the ballot initiative in response to new federal laws adopted by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in March. Among other things, the federal health care reform laws would require most people by 2014 to have health insurance.

“The federal government should not be putting a gun to people’s heads saying, ‘You will buy this private product or you will be punished,” said Caldara.

Dr. Mark Earnest, a physician and an associate professor of medicine at the School of Medicine, University of Colorado Denver, says the ballot title of the Caldara’s amendment,“Right to Health Care Choice,” was extremely deceptive. The new federal laws allow more choice – not less choice, he said.

Earnest said the second part of the proposed constitutional amendment was “silly.” He added, “It’s constitutionally protecting something that’s not threatened.”

But Caldara argued the new health care reform mandates are pushing the United States toward a Canadian-style health care system. “It’s not about fighting Obamacare today but about fighting government control in the future.”

The Colorado Legislative Council, the nonpartisan research arm of the state General Assembly, pointed out that even if the measure gains voter approval, state laws cannot overturn federal law.

But the proposed amendment, researchers added, “may mislead voters into thinking they can opt out of federal health care coverage requirement.”

Still, the health care ballot initiative could resonate with voters and ultimately affect how lawmakers respond to the issue. On Aug. 3, Missouri voters overwhelmingly approved a measure prohibiting the government from requiring people to have health insurance. Other states, including Arizona and Oklahoma, will have similar state constitutional amendments on their November ballots.

“People don’t like this mandate,” said Caldara. “People don’t believe the government has the right to force them to buy private products just because they happen to breathe in this country.”

Earlier this spring, it appeared the Independence Institute wasn’t going to collect enough signatures to get its proposal on the ballot. In June, new life was breathed into the campaign after a federal court judge in Denver issued a preliminary injunction blocking implementation of a Colorado law that would have changed the way petition circulators were paid.

The law would have limited the per-signature compensation to 20 percent of a circulator’s overall compensation, with the remainder made up by hourly pay. Petition circulators, who typically work as independent contractors and make from $50,000 to $150,000 a year,were opposed to being paid by the hour, the judge noted in his order granting the preliminary injunction.

Caldara said he hired Kennedy Enterprises, a petition circulation firm in Colorado Springs, to help with the signature-gathering effort. He said 110,000 signatures were gathered by  professionals and another 20,000 by volunteers.

Loevy said citizen-driven initiatives are leading to a new form of government in Colorado in which elected officials spend most of their time reacting to voter-approved measures.

“Anyone with an idea and thousands of dollars can put an issue before the people.”

Caldara, who said he has a son with Down Syndrome, believes that his child could not have gotten the surgeries and drugs he needed if the new healthcare reform laws were in effect.

“Never before have I been more personally committed to an issue,” he said.

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