In Colorado, universal health care activists going to voters

DENVER (AP) — Supporters of universal health care are hoping to the put their plan on Colorado ballots to see if voters will approve what state officials elsewhere have failed to achieve.,

A batch of signatures turned in Friday seeks a 2016 ballot question that would make Colorado the first state to opt out of Obamacare and replace it with universal health care.

Vermont lawmakers passed universal health care in 2011. But three years later, Vermont abandoned the plan as too expensive.

The ColoradoCareYES campaign says employers would have to pay about 7 percent of a worker’s wages into the system, with workers paying about 3 percent. They say the plan will cost $3 billion a year but will save $9 billion.

Skeptics of the plan say costs would run out of control.