Anti-Health Insurance Mandate Passes in Oklahoma, Arizona, Fails in Colorado

Voters in three states had an opportunity to express their disapproval of one the health care overhaul's key provisions yesterday. Oklahoma, Arizona, and Colorado all featured ballot measures intended to make it illegal to require that citizens purchase health insurance, a requirement included in the recent health care overhaul. The measures passed easily in Oklahoma and Arizona, but failed in Colorado. Politico talked with Mike Krause, who led the campaign to pass the measure in Colorado, and it seems the state's anti-mandate campaign effort was fairly small:

Mike Krause, campaign coordinator for Colorado's Amendment 63, said his side struggled against strong liberal organization and tight campaign races. While Arizona and Oklahoma had longtime Republican senators, John McCain and Tom Coburn, to help solidify report, Colorado had a tight race between incumbent Democrat Michael Bennett and challenger Ken Buck.

"Democrats and the left have built a very impressive capacity to get out the vote that flipped the state blue in 2008," Krause told POLITICO. "I think that capacity, which is quite impressive, is still in place."

Krause also notes that the health reform opt-out amendment fared much better than other conservative issues on the Colorado ballot. An anti-abortion measure that would have declared life as beginning at conception, for example, only received 25 percent of the vote.

The ballot initiative campaigns ranged greatly in size and scope. Arizonans for Health Care Freedom raised and spent about $2 million, running television ads and distributing 700,000 flyers over the weekend. The backers of Amendment 63 in Colorado ran a much smaller-scale operation, relying on about 7 to 10 volunteers driving 3,000 signs around the state and using Facebook advertising to get their message out.

"With $2 million we would have won," says Krause. "We'd be lucky if we even spent 15 percent of that."

As with a similar measure that passed in Missouri last August, it's not clear whether these measures will actually prevent the implementation of the mandate in the federal law. Most legal experts say the measures are symbolic in that they show opposition to the health care law in general and the mandate in particular, but won't carry the force of law. Clint Bolick of the Goldwater Institute has put together a list of reasons why these ballot measures might, in fact, stand up to legal challenge. Regardless of the how the legal issues play out, the political message from voters in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arizona is pretty clear.