CO Dems put forth a bill to pack the AQCC. What can Britain's current protests tell us about socialized/nationalized medicine?
Packing the AQCC
The bill linked first below is just recently out and it, as has been the case with many of the Democrat-backed energy bills this session, is a doozy.
My time as a teacher has taught me to never assume too much about prior knowledge, so let me back up a quick second for some prerequisite material.
--FDR, disappointed with the Supreme Court knocking down his measures meant to end the Depression, proposed adding justices to the US Supreme Court (that number is not set in the Constitution at 9, it's set by Congress) to ostensibly grease the skids for his policy. This effort went nowhere. In a similar fashion, grumblings by modern Democrats to do the same have largely stalled. This isn't a terribly popular idea.
--The Air Quality Control Commission (AQCC) is a body of unelected (they are appointed by the governor and approved by the Senate) bureaucrats who are tasked with making rules that meet the pollution goals of the legislature. To see an example of what I mean, consider the story linked second below. In order to meet the legislature's pollution targets, the AQCC recently passed a series of regulations on large (above 50K square feet) buildings.
Now, shift into drive and let's look forward again.
The bill linked below doesn't list it in its title, but it is the sponsors' attempt to pack the AQCC in a manner similar to FDR's failed effort.
To see what I mean, look a the bill's language in screenshot 1. What do you suppose the chances are that these new appointees will carefully and thoughtfully balance economic necessity with air quality?
This is an impression bolstered by a later language in the bill that amends the makeup of the committee (remember that when reading bills, plain text is current law, ALL CAPS TEXT is new law or an amendment to existing). See screenshot 2 attached. Given the current political layout of this state, we can all read between the lines here.
I wish I could say that this was all--and believe me it's enough!--but there is more. Take a look at screenshot 3 attached.
What you're looking at here is a series of new regulations that the AQCC must impose. It's easy when you see things like this to shrug and say okay to yourself. Look closer.
Any industry or business that falls under the auspices of the AQCC (and that's a lot of economic activity in this state) must NOT be allowed by them to increase any greenhouse gas emissions from current levels and it puts a hard cap on any increase in the future.
In the past if you couldn't meet your greenhouse gas regulations, you could ransom your way to freedom. That ends with this bill. If you want to continue to operate and can't (for whatever reason) meet the targets established, your ransom will be to buy emissions from someone else. That is, you must find someone else willing to do without so you can buy their carbon.
If your business is next to what the law defines as a "disproportionately impacted community", you have no choice. You will either reduce emissions or lose your permit. That is, shut down.
Stop and think for a second about what this will do to industry and business in this state.
Without the ability to possibly emit more, there is no expansion of current activity.
When everyone is chasing the same finite number of emission credits that are tied directly to reductions, what will happen to their price? What happens to the price of any sought-after good?
What happens if you happen to be situated near a community that suddenly gets declare itself disproportionately impacted? Better get out your checkbook to retrofit (or pack it up).
This is another bad bill, another dose of poison to business and economic activity in this state. I added it to my watchlist (its young enough yet to not have a committee date) and hope to speak against it when it's up for committee.
If you feel the same, bookmark the bill page and check on it every so often.
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb24-1339
https://denvergazette.com/news/environment/controversial-255billion-energy-efficiency-rule-passes/article_9e3d285c-3e21-11ee-835d-8b1652653f0f.html
Socialized medicine is really doing well in Britain right now.
England chose a long time ago to nationalize their healthcare. That is, they made doctors state employees and made it such that the nation subsidized the health care system.
I'm no expert, but I believe you can buy private insurance to get yourself top-level care and private docs, but most there simply use the national health care system (in the same way that you could pay extra, on top of your taxes, to send your child to private school but many don't)
So well, in fact, that doctors in England recently went on strike for more money. They contend that they are not now making enough to pay off the loans they took to become doctors. I linked to a BBC article I found below, you can also find a version of this on NPR (where I first heard of it).
Our healthcare system is far from perfect. I don't think you'd find a reasonable person claiming that this was the case.
The problem with ideas like that of England's is that when the government takes things over, things do not always become better and cheaper, despite what those aphorisms you see on Twitter about health care in the US say.
There is no choice without consequence and were we to nationalize some or all of our healthcare system, we would still face problems (and that includes ignoring the short term effects that such a dislocation would cause).
Costs would still be high and in efforts to try and contain that, we will face choices no easier than those we face now. And, if we chose as Britain did, to try and contain it by lowering doctors pay (or how much they can bill for, or etc), we'd face the same problems they do: lack of access to care not because of prices but because our state is furiously trying to shuttle doctors around to fill the gaps left by doctors who exit the field (permanently or on walkouts).
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-67867273