Voters in Missouri sent a strong rebuke Tuesday to President Barack Obama’s “individual mandate” with the passage of Proposition C by a 71-29% margin.

Pending the acceptance of 130,000 signatures submitted to Colorado’s Secretary of State last week, voters in the Centennial State hope to duplicate Missouri’s success with the “Right to Health Care Choice” amendment to Colorado’s Constitution:

“We want Colorado to be a sanctuary state for quality health care,” Jon Caldara, the initiative’s chief proponent, said. “This is not just to address the mandate in Obama-care, this is to make sure Colorado never becomes like Massachusetts where government puts a gun to your head and says you will buy a private product whether you want it or not.
. . . Caldara says he has spent the last few months gathering the signatures for personal, not political reasons. “I have a 6-year-old son who suffers with Down Syndrome,” he said. “He’s endured nine surgeries in his short six years. This is to save his life. This is not for show. I want quality health care here in Colorado and I want to make sure we don’t slowly gravitate toward a Canada-type system of rationing and government decisions over health care. This protects Colorado.”

The opposition has already characterized the amendment as “misleading.”

Colorado’s pursuit of “health care choice” also received a boost when a lawsuit in Virginia targeting the health care reform advanced in federal district court, which rejected President Obama’s legal arguments that the state had “no standing to sue over the law and would have no chance of ultimately prevailing.”

Democrats in Missouri appeared to preemptively concede victory, noting the enthusiasm enjoyed by the GOP in the state’s August 3 primary, but still held out hope that Prop C could be used a wedge issue in the upcoming November election.

Democratic Representative Diana DeGette (CO-1) dismissed the amendment’s potential popularity:

“It’s hard to imagine that there are too many Colorado seniors who don’t want the Medicare donut hole closed, parents who don’t want their children to have coverage as young adults, patients with pre-existing conditions who don’t want to finally get insurance or families and small business owners who aren’t interested in actually being able to afford coverage. But if there are, it’s certainly his right to try and find them.” [emphasis added]

Republican leaders, on the other hand, were understandably giddy. Colorado GOP Chairman Dick Wadhams saw the passage of Prop C as a good sign:

“Every poll I’ve seen shows a clear and overwhelming majority opposed to Obama’s health care monstrosity. Anything to repeal or undermine that will certainly help Republican candidates.”

The “health care choice” amendment needs approximately 76,000 signatures to make the November 2 ballot.