December 30, 2009 06:08 PM UTC

Caldara Readies Anti-"Obamacare" Ballot Initiative

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• by: Colorado Pols

Predictable as sunrise, the Denver Post reports:

Coloradans will likely be asked in November to blunt the impact of federal health-insurance reform with a state constitutional amendment that would attempt to undo some of what Congress is trying to pass.

Jon Caldara of the Independence Institute said Tuesday that he is still working on the language for his proposal, which would then need signatures from 76,047 voters to make the ballot.

But he intends to find out in the fall whether voters want to stop the federal government from dictating insurance requirements to Coloradans.

At the same time, a freshman state lawmaker says she’ll push her legislative colleagues to opt the state out of the congressional health care reforms.

Colorado has a right to decide how we choose to deal with health care,” Caldara said. “And it is my goal to make sure that Washington doesn’t jam Obamacare down the throats of Coloradans.”

Caldara’s got a funny way of empowering Colorado “to deal with health care,” since one of the key tenets of his initiative according to the Post would be to strip the state’s regulatory authority over health insurance by ‘breaking down state barriers’ (see: ‘Marianas Care’). We’d call that the exact opposite of ’empowerment,’ though you probably have a simpler description in mind.

As for Cindy Acree’s bill, we stopped reading at “usurping states’ rights” (where have we heard that before?), and we expect the legislature will too–circular filed with Greg Brophy’s next “Obama’s gonna take yer guns” bill.

On the other hand, it’s the long ramp-up of the federal health reform plan that gives Caldara and friends an opening to attack before the provisions fully take effect: more time to say whatever whacked-out thing they want to say without reality as an encumberance. Perhaps you thought passage of the federal bill would finally put an end to the “death panel” insanity–but at least in Colorado, Jon Caldara may have found a way to keep up a fever pitch of hyperbole all the way through next November.