Coloradans are hungry to save money, and for good reason. But so far, efforts have mostly gone after pinching pennies rather than saving dollars. Why?
If we’re serious about making Colorado affordable, it’s time to go big or go home. Here are five massively impactful areas that are holding us back financially that have nothing to do with intense squabbles over a few hundred dollars in property taxes:
Health Insurance
Coloradans pay way too much in health care costs, and not by a little, by a lot — like $3 billion a lot.
According to one state analysis, Coloradans paid a whopping $3 billion more annually than patients in other states during 2018, and that’s on top of an already bloated U.S. health care system. This amounts to $3,420 per Colorado patient, and recent trends appear to be largely going up, not down.
The reasons are deceptively simple: Colorado hospitals charge dramatically more than hospitals in other states, often illegally and unfairly. This makes them among the most expensive and profitable in the nation and gouges residents in the process. We also spend too much money on unnecessary or low-value care — at least $134 million annually. So even though we’re some of the healthiest people in the nation, we spend a shocking amount on health care compared to other Americans. This is a big problem, far more so than property taxes for most people.
Specifically, excess charges for local health care have led too many families into excessive medical debt and bankruptcy. Improved efforts to reduce these costs, even if only to match the already bloated national average spending, could easily save Coloradans far more per year than any minor property tax cut for most homeowners.
Car insurance
Health insurance isn’t the only kind of insurance Coloradans pay top dollar for. We also overpay for car insurance compared to national averages, not to mention car insurance prices in general have gone through the roof.
In addition to maintaining company profits, riskier driving, increased natural disasters and more expensive cars are all driving up these prices. As several of these are unlikely to change, holding down rates will be tough. But Colorado has a lever we haven’t yet pulled in full: An emphasis on expanding infrastructure for public transportation locally and statewide.
By investing heavily in safe bike paths, walkways, electric buses and trains, Coloradans could far more easily ditch their reliance on single-family cars that cost a fortune and reduce their annual spending on transportation by likely thousands of dollars. This, again, could save individuals and families far more than property tax cuts.
Food prices
We can’t talk about saving money right now without tackling food costs. While grocery costs are pole-vaulting nationally, some items in Colorado have jumped as much as 35% with more increases on the horizon.
According to a recent report, going out to eat isn’t faring any better. In 2023, Colorado restaurants saw the largest inflation rise nationally at 24%. And while we aren’t quite the most expensive restaurants yet, trends suggest we’re well on our way. These increases are already impacting our ability to eat out, putting quality of life and local businesses at risk and thinning out our wallets.
As for how to bring these prices down, the first step would be to solidly assess why exactly Colorado is rising so much faster than all the other states. If it’s storefront rent, which I suspect is part of it, adding density to increase supply might help. Incidentally, more density could help lower property taxes, too, a potential win-win.
Income Tax Brackets
Colorado is currently one of the few states that still has a flat tax rate. This means that all Coloradans, no matter how much or how little they make, are all taxed at the same 4.4% of their income.
This disproportionately puts the tax burden on low- and middle-income earners. It also puts the average Coloradan at a disadvantage when compared to other Americans making equal amounts in other states with more progressive income taxes.
Changing Colorado’s flat income tax to a more progressive income tax could be an effective way to help ensure lower costs of living for many Coloradans without losing funds for critical services. It’s also a much fairer tax structure than a flat rate.
Notably, eliminating income tax altogether — as has been advocated for by Colorado’s Gov. Jared Polis — should be a nonstarter. Elimination in this case is a regressive tax structure that permits the wealthiest among us to not pay their fair share and serves to widen the already gaping wealth disparity. And while implementing a progressive income tax might not save everyone thousands of dollars per year, given that the state’s leader supports a policy that would worsen the wealth gap it’s definitely worth mentioning.
Flat TABOR rebates
As long as the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights is mandated in Colorado, local taxpayers should receive flattened refunds. This refund mechanism offers the average Coloradan a guarantee of more money back in favorable TABOR years, without affecting non-favorable TABOR years, and continues toward efforts to rebuild a robust middle class — the underpinning of affordability.
Making Colorado affordable in today’s economy won’t be easy, but with the right vision it is possible. This requires looking beyond smaller items such as average-rate property taxes to larger, more impactful issues that affect most Coloradans and threaten to hold us back.
After all, Colorado leads the pack in a lot of ways, and that’s great. But ranking at the top of the nation for increasing costs isn’t what we should be aiming for.
Trish Zornio is a scientist, lecturer and writer who has worked at some of the nation’s top universities and hospitals. She’s an avid rock climber and was a 2020 candidate for the U.S. Senate in Colorado. Trish can be found on Twitter @trish_zornio
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