Wannabe-woke legislative Democrats might wantonly reduce health care for typical, hard-working Colorado residents. Repeat: Politicians might vote this week to reduce the supply of health care. They will do so by deceptively claiming to help the poor and oppressed.

If they vote to reduce health care for the many, know it is for the cause of distributing wealth on a basis of demographic identity. This is the age of critical race theory, which gives a grievance more value than a life of accomplishment. A vote for House Bill 1232 favors “reducing economic and health disparities by ethnicity, race, education, geography, age, and income,” and sexual orientation.

The bill, headed to the House floor this week, establishes a “standardized health benefit plan.” The option offers reduced premiums and forces health care providers to accept low and fixed reimbursement rates as full payment. Providers who don’t go along with it face the cancellation of their licenses to practice.

No matter how they word HB 1232, it is a price-fixing bill that comes with an inevitable consequence. As any economist will attest, we get more of what we pay for and vice versa.

If the government concocts a scheme to demand lower health care prices, we will almost certainly get less health care as professionals retire early or move to states more friendly to their practices.

Legislators are fully aware that HB 1232 might reduce the amount of health care for those who have it.

“Racial and ethnic minority communities, rural communities, people with disabilities, populations with a lower socioeconomic status, and LGBTQ communities are often disproportionately exposed to adverse conditions, environments, and health risks and more likely to experience health disparities,” explains a May 17 “revised demographic note” from the Legislative Council Staff.

The report concludes HB 1232 might help “several populations,” while causing others to suffer.

“If health care providers reduce services in response to reduced premiums required under the bill, the bill may impact economic, employment, and health outcomes for the populations or health care providers affected,” the analysis explains.

It warns of the bill causing the closure of hospitals and clinics that cannot afford the lower reimbursements.

“Specifically, to the extent that health care providers respond to financial changes that accompany the bill by reducing the provision of health care services or closing facilities, these impacts may offset economic and health outcomes resulting from reduced health insurance premiums…”

The legislature cannot possibly improve the long-term health care of underserved populations by jeopardizing health care providers. The bill does more harm than good, mostly so politicians can attest to their great concern for “racial and ethnic minority” and “LGBTQ” communities and other special interest demographics they pander to for support.

Legislators who genuinely care about “minority communities” will quickly dispense with any proposal that stands to make Colorado less attractive to health care investors and practitioners.

We need policies that encourage and reward the practice of medicine, not a law that forces health care providers to contend with adverse “financial changes” that will make them want to move, quit, or reduce the services they offer.

Whether one looks at goods, services, or commodities, a surplus mostly benefits those with the least. Conversely, wealth always finds a way to access services in short supply. That is why a shortage — whether it is food, fuel, housing, or health care — always shorts “populations with a lower socioeconomic status.”

HB 1232, as explained by the legislative council, would impose economic conditions adverse to providing health care. That means we will get less of it. Those who will suffer first and foremost are “racial and ethnic minority communities” and other populations “with a lower socioeconomic status” — the people this ignorant bill falsely purports to help. Please, scrap this ridiculous bill.