Talk:2016 Colorado Amendment 69

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:2016 Colorado Amendment 69/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Aesurias (talk · contribs) 06:48, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Reviewer: MCE89 (talk · contribs) 08:32, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

I'll review this one — expect my initial comments in the next day or so. MCE89 (talk) 08:32, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

Cheers! :) aesurias (ping me in your reply, or I won't see it) (talk) 09:07, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

@Aesurias: Added some initial comments. Overall I think this is solid and not far off meeting the GA criteria, but there are a couple of minor gaps in breadth and some potential SYNTH and overquoting issues that I'd want addressed before passing this. Let me know when you're ready for me to take another look and I'll do the remainder of the source review and spot-checks. MCE89 (talk) 09:34, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

I believe I've addressed all the issues you mentioned. The campaign one is the most difficult, I have tried to add some more but the entirety of the campaign was dominated by supporters saying "you're funded by big pharma" and opponents saying "you're going to destroy our businesses" with little real substance in either argument.

With regards to the 5% income tax discussion by Aguilar, it's rather difficult to explain as she was being intentionally misleading. She basically infers in the article used as a source that the 5% income tax would be replaced with the ColoradoCare tax, but in reality, Colorado collects a "penalty tax" alongside annual (income) tax filings for the 3% of residents who don't have a healthcare plan. The penalty is a few hundred dollars and the state earns over $25 billion from it, so Aguilar means that because the 3% will almost certainly use ColoradoCare, they will avoid the penalty tax.

Source review can go ahead whenever you have time. Thanks for such a speedy in-depth initial review!!! aesurias (ping me in your reply, or I won't see it) (talk) 10:45, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

Also – simply because this is part of the review criteria/table, I should mention that I have tried VERY hard on many many sites to find images, videos etc. that can be used on Wikipedia, with no success. As such, the only images in the article are a few maps, but this is somewhat standard for election pages. aesurias (ping me in your reply, or I won't see it) (talk) 10:48, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

P.S. another question that perhaps you are willing to give your opinion on re: endorsements.

Currently, I have "former" [position] listed for endorsees who were no longer in office at the time of the referendum, but not for endorsees who were in office at the time but have since retired or been elected to higher office.

For example:

Bill Ritters is listed as "former governor of Colorado (2007–2011)", as he left office before 2016

while

Wayne Williams is listed as "secretary of state of Colorado (2015–2019)", with his tenure marked but no "former".

Do you think I should change this? aesurias (ping me in your reply, or I won't see it) (talk) 00:06, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

All looks good, thanks for all those changes. No problem at all regarding images if there are no good free images available. I think the approach you've used for the endorsements also works well - it makes sense to use "former" to distinguish those who were no longer in office at the time, and the use of date ranges means it's not confusing with regards to those who have since left office.

Just one suggestion from the spot checks and a few additional comments from another read through, but otherwise this should be good. MCE89 (talk) 06:19, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

@Aesurias: Forgot to ping. MCE89 (talk) 06:21, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks :) I have addressed these issues now. P.S. do you know why I don't receive notifications for replies anymore? It's very frustrating! aesurias (ping me in your reply, or I won't see it) (talk) 11:03, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

Funnily enough I've been having exactly the opposite issue lately where I'm getting flooded with notifications for everything... might be some way to turn it back on in your notification preferences though?

All looks good though, passing this now :) Congrats! MCE89 (talk) 20:10, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

General comments

• The "Background" section feels like it skips a bit of context. The body should be independent of the lead, so you can’t assume that a reader has already read the lead and knows what ColoradoCare is or that this was a proposed constitutional amendment. The article also goes straight into describing how the scheme would work without discussing the history behind it (i.e. how the policy was developed, how it was proposed and ended up on the ballot, the policy context etc.)
• Both the campaign and aftermath sections are very quote-heavy. I'd suggest trying to summarise some of these quotes in your own words, and ideally incorporating some broader information about the overall campaign and reaction to decrease the weighting towards individual statements
• I’m concerned that parts of the analysis section are bordering on SYNTH/OR. In my view it's fine to cite the election results directly for basic statements of fact, like the fact that the amendment failed in all 64 counties. But a sentence like The state's first, second and seventh congressional districts rejected Amendment 69 while concurrently re-electing their Democratic representatives by wide margins is a piece of original analysis of the election results (i.e. one that pulls out and contrasts particular results to imply a new conclusion). To give another example, the sentence that contains …a number of other progressive ballot measures… is cited to the NYT election results page , which as far as I can tell doesn’t describe the other measures as progressive. I'd suggest that this section should ideally be cited largely to secondary sources analysing the results and pointing out what was noteworthy or interesting about them, rather than drawing that analysis directly from the results themselves.
• I think the “Campaign” section could engage a little more with the issues at play in the campaign. At the moment it’s largely focused on the politics, i.e. the funding and endorsements. You hint at some of the substance of the debate (e.g. economic concerns, health freedom, impact on small businesses), but there's not much about what the supporters and opponents were actually saying during the campaign

Prose comments

Most of these are more nitpicky and are not essential for meeting the GA criteria on their own, so feel free to disregard or push back on any that you don’t think would be an improvement

• create universal healthcare for state residents - Suggest changing to create a universal healthcare scheme for state residents or similar
• Optional, but I'd delink ColoradoCare. The link makes readers think we have an article about the scheme, when really the target article has less information about ColoradoCare than this one. To be honest, it seems like that redirect probably just be retargeted to this article
• I’d expand “could’ve” to “could have”
• estimated that 83% of Colorado’s population, or around 4.4 million people, would have been eligible for primary health insurance coverage through the system - Can you give a bit more detail on what these eligibility criteria were?
• Members would have also voted for potential tax increases to increase funding for the program - I got a bit lost here. Would all Coloradans have automatically become members and therefore been able to vote on potential tax increases, or would only some residents have been members of the cooperative?
• I’d move the first paragraph of the “Campaign” section down to within the “Opposition” sub-section — at the moment it’s a bit out of place on its own at the beginning
• Referencing Colorado's 5% income tax used to fund the state government, she claimed that "Coloradans are going to pay $25 billion anyway— it’s just how it’s collected.” - This needs a bit more explanation - what’s the relationship between the 5% income tax and the proposed 10% payroll tax?
• In their official endorsement... - Don't think we need "official" here
• prominent national and state politicians from both major parties - "Prominent" feels a little vague
• the landslide results of Amendment 69 - Suggest changing to "the landslide result" or "the landslide defeat of Amendment 69"

Second round of prose comments. MCE89 (talk) 06:19, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

• infers approval of the current healthcare system - I don't think "infers" is quite the right verb choice here, perhaps "implies" or "conveys"?
• hurt their ability to run a business — Given that this clause is already referencing "companies", you could change "run a business" to "run their business", or just simplify it to something like "operate"
• There are a handful of places where phrases taken from the source could use some reworking (overlap with the source bolded), but otherwise my copyvio/CLOP checks didn't show any issues:
  • The state's uninsured rate was 13%, equal to the national rate
  • The amendment would not have prevented people from purchasing private health insurance
  • A portion of Social Security and retirement income would be exempt from ColoradoCare taxes — up to $33,000 for an individual and $60,000 for couples

Source review

• Detailed source review still to come, but as a couple of initial notes:
  • Footnotes a-e all need citations
  • This source seems to be a memo by one of ColoradoCare YES's lawyers, which I don't think is a great source for the claim: ColoradoCare YES criticized this position, claiming that Amendment 69 would supersede the 1984 ban, which is enshrined in the state's constitution
• Reference formatting and layout meets GA criteria. No concerns regarding the reliability of the remaining sources as far as I could see

Spot checks

This table checks 16 passages from throughout the article (14.7% of 109 total passages). These passages contain 18 inline citations (14.9% of 121 in the article). Generated with the Veracity user script. MCE89 (talk) 06:19, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

Reference #	Letter	Source	Archive	Status	Notes
2016 Colorado Amendment 69 was an initiated constitutional amendment that appeared on the November 8, 2016, ballot. The measure aimed to create a universal healthcare scheme for state residents through the introduction of ColoradoCare, which would be paid for through the introduction of a 10% payroll tax.
1	a	ballotpedia.org
The amendment would not have prevented people from purchasing private health insurance,
1	d	ballotpedia.org
Amendment 69 received opposition from national and state politicians from both major parties, with the group Coloradans for Coloradans leading the opposition campaign.
1	f	ballotpedia.org
Coloradans for Coloradans hired the Democratic consultant firm Global Strategy Group, who were simultaneously working with Priorities USA Action, a super PAC associated with Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
8	d	theguardian.com
Despite Amendment 69 receiving support from Colorado Democratic Party,
17	a	coloradodems.org	web.archive.org		I'd suggest making this claim more specific by changing it to something like Despite the Colorado Democratic Party's 2016 platform expressing support for ColoradoCare, as you discuss elsewhere how divided the party was
Jeanne Nicholson, former state senator from the 16th district (2011–2015) (Democratic)
25	a	publicnewsservice.org
Healthcare Now
34	b	ballotpedia.org
Mike Coffman, CO-06 (2009–2019) (Republican)
36	b	denver7.com
Bill Owens, former governor of Colorado (1999–2007) (Republican)
39	a	ballotpedia.org
Bob Gardner, former state representative from the 20th district (2011–2015) and 21st district (2007–2011) (Republican)
42		gazette.com
Associated General Contractors of America
46	b	cpr.org
Yampa Valley Medical Center
51		steamboatpilot.com
The Denver Post
37	d	denverpost.com
They noted an August 2016 poll that showed 41% of Democrats supported Amendment 69, while 45% opposed it.
66	c	thirdway.org
64	b	magellanstrategies.com	web.archive.org
Since 2021, Hickenlooper has represented Colorado in the U.S. Senate.
38		congress.gov

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

DYK

Hi @MCE89,

I am interested as to whether or not this would be interesting (honest opinion!) as a DYK; something like "Did you know ... that in 2016, statewide universal healthcare was rejected in a landslide by Colorado residents?" aesurias (ping me in your reply, or I won't see it) (talk) 00:29, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

@Aesurias Personally I'd definitely find that an interesting hook. My only suggestion would be to delink universal healthcare and Colorado, since my experience is that DYK tends to try to minimise the non-bolded links in hooks. The only other potential alt hook that stood out to me on another read through would be something like "... that abortion rights groups in Colorado opposed a proposed 2016 constitutional amendment to create a statewide universal healthcare scheme?", but I'd say your original one is better. MCE89 (talk) 11:42, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

I like that one too! Thanks!! aesurias (ping me in your reply, or I won't see it) (talk) 00:38, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. You can locate your hook here. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Zzz plant (talk) 22:57, 12 February 2026 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that in 2016, statewide universal healthcare was rejected in a landslide by Colorado residents?

• Source: "On the day the state of Colorado voted for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump by about 5 points, voters there also rejected a ballot measure to enact a state-based single-payer system by an astounding margin of 79 percent to 21 percent.

Amendment 69, the Colorado Creation of ColoradoCare System Initiative, would have created a system in which all Coloradans would gain insurance through a tax-funded government insurance program. Private health insurers would have been rendered obsolete."

• • ALT1: ... that abortion rights groups in Colorado opposed a 2016 ballot measure to create a statewide universal healthcare scheme? Source: Because Colorado’s constitution bans public funding for abortions, ColoradoCare would’ve taken away access to abortion from the hundreds of thousands of women currently in private health plans that cover the procedure. That earned the amendment the opposition of NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado and Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, two leading progressive groups in the state.
    
  • Reviewed:
  • Comment: I have not reviewed any DYK nominations because I don't work in this area and didn't even know that I could do such a thing! I might have to start doing that; seems interesting.

Improved to Good Article status by Aesurias (talk). Number of QPQs required: 0. Nominator has fewer than 5 past nominations.

aesurias (ping me in your reply, or I won't see it) (talk) 00:47, 17 January 2026 (UTC).

• Article was nominated within a week of becoming GA status, is long enough, well-sourced, presentable, citation is good for hook, the hook is short enough, and interesting, no images, no QPQ required, and there are no other issues. I think ALT1 is better overall because abortion rights and universal healthcare are typically viewed as things that one person would view favorably together. As such, I think this works better. And, because Colorado isn't the most well-known state to people who live outside of the U.S., such as California, New York, Florida, or a state like Alabama, people outside the U.S. will be more interested in this; I think that you think because Colorado is more of a progressive state that people will find it interesting, but the problem is that most people outside of the U.S. likely don't know this. ALT1: Delcoan (talk) 17:34, 22 January 2026 (UTC)