Ritter health package a ‘good 1st step’

DENVER - Gov. Bill Ritter proposed a $25 million health care plan Tuesday that would provide insurance to 45,000 more children and create a Web-based report card on insurance companies.

In announcing the plan, the Democratic governor also said he will not seek a tax increase on the November ballot for a broad statewide health care plan. Senate Health and Human Services Committee Chairman Bob Hagedorn, D-Aurora, said afterward that he is still considering the option.

Despite falling short of Ritter’s goals to get health coverage to all 180,000 uninsured children in the state by 2010, health care reform advocates praised the package as a “good first step.”

“Every Colorado kid deserves a healthy start,” Ritter said. “We’re going to keep looking for additional resources to keep covering kids. . . . We understand it’s not all of the uninsured kids.”

The success of the package depends heavily on the fate of two bills.

A Senate bill introduced Wednesday would increase the number of families eligible for government-funded insurance for kids and pregnant women through the Child Health Plan Plus.

A yet-to-be introduced bill would establish a medical home for each child covered by Medicaid or CHP Plus, meaning that they would be set up with a primary-care doctor rather than have to use the emergency room when they’re sick.

The plan would also expand public outreach programs to sign up kids who are eligible for public insurance but have not gotten it. And it would attempt to get more doctors to accept governmentcovered patients by increasing Medicaid reimbursement rates.

Hagedorn said he’ll introduce a bill next week to implement the $23 million public health recommendations suggested by the Blue-Ribbon Commission on Health Care Reform two weeks ago. That proposal, which would involve more outreach to rural areas, may require public approval of a new funding source, he said.

Colorado’s four health foundations applauded the proposals as “realistic steps,” and Dede de Percin of the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative lauded it for dealing with private insurance plans, public insurance and the uninsured.

Rep. Don Marostica, R-Loveland, said he heard a lot of good things in the proposal but questioned where Ritter would find the $25 million. Sen. John Morse, a Colorado Springs Democrat and member of the Joint Budget Committee, said the plan sends a strong moral message, but he acknowledged other state government programs must be cut for it to be funded.

Eva Henry, a single mother from Thornton who raised two girls without insurance, called the plan “a beginning” but said it’s not nearly enough yet. If Ritter can implement this, he needs to talk about providing insurance to lowerincome workers, she said.

“You’ve got the old and you’ve got the young that are covered,” Henry said. “You don’t have the middle man.”

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