Colorado's single-payer system would be as successful as you'd think

All in all, the single-payer system will create a massive budget deficit at the end of a decade. “The resulting deficit in 2028, after all other revenues and savings are taken into account, would be $7.8 billion,” the study concludes. The new system would not constrain health-care costs, and the disparity “would cause ColoradoCare’s bottom line to worsen every year.”

In a monopolistic government-run system, what options would Colorado residents have to fix these problems? CHI offers three ways to keep ColoradoCare from collapsing. The government-run system “could ask its members to approve tax increases,” (emphasis mine), which would erode buying power across the board and have a negative effect on the economy. Failing that, the government could choose to provide fewer benefits or stiff providers with lower payments.

These are precisely the options left when the government takes over a private-sector function. It operates from a scarcity model, choosing to ration and tax where a healthy market would provide opportunities for price signaling, competition, and increased production. None of the potential solutions to the fiscal crisis that would result from ColoradoCare add to the choices or options consumers would have in the market; it either restricts their buying power, their choices, or their providers. After all, how many doctors will choose to work and live in Colorado in a system where the government restricts what they can make from their work, and keeps reducing their pay?