Martin Buchanan asked me to put this on the Comment side of this post -- it is his letter to the state representatives.

Dear State Representatives:

On Monday 18 February you will hold hearings in the Business Affairs and Labor Committee on House Bill 1327, allowing Coloradans to freely buy health insurance issued in other states. As a working man, I'm unable to attend the hearings and testify. I've taken the last couple of hours writing this emailed letter to you all, including my own Rep. Ferrandino, to express my strong and reasoned support for this bill.

1. We need this bill to cut the Gordian knot of 49 Colorado state health insurance mandates in current law. See the Council for Affordable Health Insurance (http://www.cahi.org) and their just released report on Health Insurance Mandates in the States 2008. These mandates increase health insurance costs by 50% or more.

2. Individual rights are the foundation of American government and Colorado's Constitution. Article II of Colorado's Constitution describes inalienable rights to our lives, property, and pursuing ("seeking") happiness, along with free exercise of religion and many other rights. Like the U.S. Constitution, Colorado's Constitution indicates that the enumeration of certain rights does not deny or disparage others retained by the people. HB1327 goes a long way towards restoring individual rights currently violated by health care mandates:

A. Our natural right to buy and sell freely, so long as we violate no other person's rights. HB1327 simply allows us to buy health insurance policies from other states, just as we already buy books from Amazon.com in Washington state and computers from Dell.com in Texas.

B. Our natural right to choose the features we want in the goods and services we buy. It would be insane to force me to buy a Cadillac if all I need is Kia. It is equally nuts to force me to buy health coverage I don't want for services that I don't need.

C. Our natural right to life. Because mandates make health insurance unaffordable for many Coloradans who otherwise could afford it, those people then go without health insurance and often without health care, risking their lives, because of the mandates that raise prices.

D. Our freedom of religion and conscientous belief. For example, abstaining from alcohol is a tenet of the Mormon faith, the Muslim faith, and many others. Yet currently Colorado law compels anyone buying health insurance to buy alcoholism coverage. Scientologists object to the modern mental health profession, but are compelled to buy mental health coverage. Some people consider chiropractic to be quackery, but the law compels them to pay for that coverage.

3. If you do not care about individual rights, then consider the utilitarian advantages of passing HB 1327:

A. Reducing health insurance costs by up to one third when Coloradans choose less expensive policies from other states with fewer and less onerous mandates.

B. Increasing competition among health insurers, who must now compete with out of state providers as well as in-state providers.

C. As a corollary of (A) and (B), reducing the number of uninsured Coloradans.

D. By reducing the number of uninsured Coloradans, reducing uncompensated medical care costs incurred by hospital emergency rooms and other medical providers.

E. Reducing the number of uninsured Coloradans is an important goal for the current governor and the 208 commission. More freedom is a much better way to accomplish this goal than more taxes and mandates.

F. You know that many of the existing mandates were created due to special interest group lobbying, not because of any pressing public need. HB 1327 gives us a way to reduce the negative impact of these mandates without yet going through the more difficult exercise of repealing these mandates one by one.

Sincerely,

[ writing for myself, not my employer ]

Martin L. Buchanan, MCSD

[Here's a copy of my letters to each of the legislators listed in the post. -- PSH]

Subject: I support HB 08-1327, "Affordable Health Insurance"

Dear XXX:

My name is Dr. Paul Hsieh. I am a resident of Sedalia, CO, and a practicing physician in the South Denver metro area.

I'd like to speak out in strong support of HB 08-1327, "Affordable Health Insurance", because it would be good for my patients as well as my colleagues.

This bill is good because it gives Colorado residents greater choice in selecting health insurance products both from within the state and out of the state, without being subject to some of the onerous insurance mandates which have made quality health insurance too costly for many hard-working families.

It gives people the right to more freely contract with insurers for the goods and services that they genuinely need, using the proven power of the free market to help bring down costs and improve quality.

Arvada attorney Lin Zinser and I have written an article entitled, "Moral Health Care vs. 'Universal Health Care'", which has recently appeared in the national journal, "The Objective Standard".

We argue that the current crisis in American health care is the result of decades of government interference and violations of individual rights in health insurance and medicine. Hence the solution to the problem is not more government controls but instead to gradually and systematically transition to a rights-respecting, fully free market in those industries.

The full text of the article is available online for free at: <http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2007-winter/moral-vs-universal-health-care.asp> or <http://tinyurl.com/25zffu>.

HB 08-1327 would be a good step in the right direction towards allowing a much-needed free market in health insurance.

Thank you,

Paul Hsieh, MD
6586 W Rainbow Creek Rd.
Sedalia, CO 80135
E-mail:
Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine: <http://www.WeStandFIRM.org>