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Lenny Herzog: Question the data







Mayling Simpson’s Sept. 29 letter regarding Colorado Care, Amendment 69, makes it apparent that Mayling has put a lot of work into “gathering a lot of data.” But I strongly question the data in its entirety.

According to Simpson, all of her data has been deducted from “the calculator at coloradocare.org.” I don’t know who coloradocare.org is, and I doubt Simpson knows the source of funding that has produced Amendment 69 but that isn’t my point at this time.

The data that Simpson might have researched is; how has “universal health care” or let’s call it what it is, socialized medicine experiments, worked so far?That may be a better conversation.



I am not going to argue the points of Canada- or European-style socialized medicine, most of us have already balanced those examples with whatever sources of information we have sought for them.

Right here in the United States we have our own example, the Affordable Care Act. I know of people who are the beneficiaries of the ACA, and there are many, so it isn’t all bad.



The issue that I have is the data. Not enough of the data that was provided to us in determining if the ACA would work was accurate. So Simpson urging us to “do our own calculation” is inspiring but let’s not go to the wrong place.

If you consider the data provided by the expert proponents of the ACA and the reality of the program you should be able to realize that the data was worthless. The data did not show that the major insurers, Humana, Aetna and United Healthcare, would exit many of the markets that they were in because of the costs.

The data did not show that these insurers would loose money in 41 states in 2014 and 2015 and that United Healthcare would loose $1 billion in two years.  The data didn’t show that some places would be left with only one option (no choices) for health insurance and even Pinal County, Arizona, is facing no options on the exchange. The data didn’t show that some folks would pay double the healthcare expenses while the insurers dry up.

These are only a few mild statements about a centrally-planned healthcare system that is almost 20 percent of the economy and is collapsing under its own weight. 

When we are urged to “do our own calculation” when deciding if Amendment 69 is good for us, remember the data, “if you like your plan you can keep your plan.”

Lenny Herzog

South Routt


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