Just as Coloradans became accustomed to the idea of the Affordable Care Act, along came a ballot measure to replace the state’s health care exchange with a model similar to Canada’s universal health care system.

Amendment 69 is a ballot initiative that promises to deliver on big goals of health coverage for all at a hefty price tag of $25 billion.

ColoradoCare would guarantee health care coverage to every Coloradan through a Medicare-style system in which proponents say Coloradans would get to choose their own providers, with smaller co-payments and zero deductibles. Proponents suggest it would solve a multitude of problems by replacing the state’s existing health care exchange which has suffered problems including cost overruns, lack of coverage, and website outages. While it sounds like a dream to some, those who would foot the bill suggest the idea is nothing short of a nightmare.

Opponents say the primary problem with a single payer system is that the “single payer” often ends up being the taxpayer. In this case, ColoradoCare would be paid for by a 10 percent tax on all Coloradans: employers would be required to pay a nearly seven percent tax on their employees’ salaries, while employees would have another three percent taken out of their paychecks. The self-employed in Colorado would be responsible for the entire ten-percent tax.

The free-market advocacy group Advancing Colorado suggests that such a large tax hike will scare businesses, employers, and entrepreneurs out of the state.

It remains unclear if voters would support such a massive tax increase. With the exception of taxes on pot and tobacco, Colorado voters haven’t passed a statewide tax increase in more than 20 years. And most recently in 2013, voters resoundingly rejected a $1 billion tax increase for education that would have been the largest increase in state history.

If voters do support ColoradoCare in November, proponents of the initiative say it would create a de-centralized, local health care system that would take control away from Washington, D.C. and place control right here in Colorado. But, the swap could be a shell game that simply shifts power from health providers, insurance companies and patients to a local panel of 21 bureaucrats who would control Coloradans’ health care. The idea of a panel of public officials deciding who receives care — combined with the fact that one of the ColoradoCare proponents has suggested that the “elderly have a duty to die” — conjures up images of the so-called “death panels” which Republicans warned about in 2008.

Colorado’s unelected health panel would also be granted the authority to raise taxes once per year without accountability to the governor or the legislature and without having to adhere to the Taxpayer Bill of Rights known as TABOR. It would also circumvent voters’ rights to recall officeholders, a right which is guaranteed in the Colorado constitution.

The panel — which is not required to consist of physicians — would also be granted the authority to create health districts and determine appropriate levels of care, potentially allowing state officials to interrupt the most sacred relationship of all: the relationship between a doctor and a patient.

If passed by voters this November, the measure would make Colorado the first state to opt out of the Affordable Care Act by implementing universal health care. It would not be the first time Colorado has made history at the ballot box. A state which is often a testing ground for progressive ideas, Colorado was the first in the nation to legalize recreational marijuana.

Now, as the social engineers battle the free marketeers in this great health care debate there is no doubt that both sides will be well-funded in 2016. But the money spent at the ballot box debating ColoradoCare this fall will pale in comparison to the portion of the state budget it will occupy, as the price tag of the progressive program nears the amount of the entire state budget of Colorado itself.

For voters in Colorado who consider themselves social liberals but fiscal conservatives, ColoradoCare may be too bitter a pill to swallow.