What’s on the ballot for Colorado
Statewide Ballot
Amendment 69: Statewide Health Care System
If Amendment 69 passes, the statewide health care system will be known as ColoradoCare. It won’t immediately go into effect until lawmakers can get other issues like tax increases approved during the 2017 Legislative Session.
Advocates for the new healthcare system are proposing that additional taxes be included to the state’s current 4.63 percent income tax.
Anyone with private insurance will be able to keep their coverage, however they will still have to pay the required new taxes for ColoradoCare.
The initial taxes will be collected starting July 1, 2017, and tax rates will increase to their full amount 30 days before ColoradoCare assumes responsibility for health care payments in Colorado.
ColoradoCare will be prohibited from charging deductibles but may require co-payments for some health care services.
For employees, the new taxes are assessed on wages earned. For employers, the taxes are based on the total wages for all employees.
When ColoradoCare becomes fully operational, the state’s health insurance exchange, Connect for Health Colorado, will be terminated.
There will be a 21-member board of trustees put in place to help monitor and get ColoradoCare off the ground
For more information on this ballot, click here.
Amendment 70: State Minimum Wage
Amendment 70 aims to increase the hourly pay for minimum wage workers. If passed, the current $8.31 per hour will increase to $9.30 per hour beginning January 1, 2017.
Beginning January 1, 2018, minimum wage will begin to increase annually by .90 cents per hour until it reaches $12 per hour in 2020. On January 1, 2021, and thereafter, minimum wage will be adjusted each year based on cost-of-living increases.
Tipped workers will also see an increase. By 2020, their hourly minimum wage will be $8.98.
Amendment 70 will prevent decrease in minimum wage if the cost of living falls.
Amendment 72: Increase Cigarette and Tobacco Taxes
Amendment 72 will increase the state tax on a pack of cigarettes from $0.84 to $2.59. The tax on other tobacco products will increase from 40 percent to 62 percent.
The additional revenue provided by this tax increase will go towards medical research, tobacco-use prevention, doctors and clinics in rural or low-income areas, veterans’ services, and other health-related programs.
Proposition 106: Access to Medical Aid-in-Dying Medication
Proposition 106 creates the “Colorado End-of-Life Options Act,” which would allow a terminally ill person with six months or less to live to request a medication that would end their life. This proposition would also give permission to physicians to prescribe the aid-in-dying medication.
Anyone who tampers with a request for medication or knowingly coerces a terminally ill person to ask for the medicine will be committing a class two felony.
Qualifications for the medication include:
They have to be a Colorado resident that is 18 years or older Be able to make and communicate an informed decision to health care providers Have a terminal illness with a prognosis of six months or less to live (terminally ill) that has been confirmed by two physicians, including the individual’s primary physician and a second consulting physician Be determined mentally capable by two physicians, who have concluded that the individual understands the consequences of his or her decision Voluntarily expresses his or her wish to receive the medication
Requesting or self-administering the medication would not affect a life, health, or accident insurance policy or an annuity, and nothing in the measure affects advance medical directives. Insurers would not be allowed to issue policies with conditions about whether or not individuals may request medication.
To read more on “Colorado End-of-Life Options Act,” click here.
To see the full list of state issues and who is running for what, you can check out the Colorado Ballot Blue Book. For more information on initiatives filed and historical ballot information, you can visit the Official State Web Portal.
