Change in health care, slowly but surely
Lawmakers credited with building blocks for future; vote on major bill is set for today
Going after the insurance industry was not what a blue ribbon commission had in mind when it recommended sweeping changes in health care at the beginning of the 2008 legislative session, the commission chairman said Monday.
But Chairman Bill Lindsay acknowledged the Legislature this year established valuable building blocks to getting health care to 792,000 uninsured Coloradans, even if the changes did not seem earth-shattering.
With the final major health care bill expected to be approved today, the General Assembly can take credit for making 55,000 more children eligible for public health insurance, making it easier to get those kids signed up and beginning the creation of a statewide public-health improvement plan.
Today's measure, SB217, calls for private insurers to submit proposals that could be made into a pool of low-cost, minimum-benefit plans for those without insurance.
This wouldn't lead to enactment of any of the billion-dollar universal coverage plans proposed by the Blue-Ribbon Commission for Health-Care Reform, but Lindsay and other members said they did not expect such seismic change right away.
"It's a beginning. And I genuinely continue to be optimistic that we can continue to move toward comprehensive reform," commissioner Elisabeth Arenales said.
Lindsay, who is an insurance company executive, questioned, however, why Democrats chose to run two late bills that give the state insurance commissioner power to reject private rate increases and heavily increase fines against insurance companies that don't pay claims promptly.
Neither encourages insurance companies to set up or stay in the state, a condition necessary for increasing market choices and keeping health care affordable, he said.
"I think it's been somewhat disappointing," Lindsay said. "Nowhere in the deliberations of the commission did we ever get the impression from the public that there was this huge problem with insurance companies denying claims."
There seemed to be some reluctance among legislators to make giant steps when all presidential candidates are campaigning for some sort of federal health care program, said Jim Tatten, a lobbyist for the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry's Health Care Steering Committee.
