Health care commission gives suggestions
01 02 08 - 11:40
By Coloradoan staff and news services
DENVER - A state commission on health care recommended Thursday that everyone in Colorado be required to have medical insurance and that the state put more money into child health care and Medicaid.
The commission also recommended subsidies for low- income workers to purchase private insurance.
The commission was appointed by lawmakers and Gov. Bill Ritter to find a way to get health care to nearly 800,000 Colorado residents who don't have insurance. Members have acknowledged their initiatives could cost millions of dollars, but they left it to lawmakers to figure how to pay for them.
"This is not merely a laundry list of suggestions. This is a comprehensive, integrated, interdependent package that can be implemented in stages," commission Chairman William Lindsay III said.
Larimer County lawmakers all agreed health care is in need of reform but said the Legislature should tread carefully.
"I think we are getting some things done on the margin, but we're not changing the whole system," said Sen. Steve Johnson, R-Larimer County. "This is a big change we're talking about, and the voters are skeptical on big changes, and this is expensive because we're talking about $400 million to $15 billion and it means big changes to people's personal lives. I think that people want to understand these changes before they vote for it, and I think it would be a big mistake to rush this to the ballot and see it fail."
Fort Collins Democratic Rep. John Kefalas said the state is making some movement on health-care-related legislation this year and said he hoped that a single-payer system would get its "day in the sun."
"People want quality, access, affordability, and they want choices when it comes to their health care," he said. "In the end, they want to feel good about it all."
In a telephone interview, Dr. Kathy Waller, a Fort Collins physician and member of Health Care for All Colorado, said she still supports a single-payer health care program for the state.
Such a system would reduce the amount of money spent statewide on health care by $1 billion a year while covering all residents, she said.
Because of the financial influence insurance companies have in Congress and the Statehouse, a grassroots effort would be needed to get single-payer programs started, she said.
"I think the momentum is growing and I think we're likely to see some state step forward with a single-payer program," she said. "All the other programs have been tried in other states and they have failed."
Commissioners Linda Gorman and R. Allan Jensen voted against the report and issued a minority report, saying the commission views the private sector as the source of U.S. health care woes and an expansion of government control as the solution.
Dr. Mark Laitos, co-chair of the Colorado Medical Society's Physicians' Congress for Health Care Reform, said the system is broken and needs to be fixed.
The 27-member Blue Ribbon Commission for Health Care Reform offered lawmakers five proposals in their final report. One would require that people purchase insurance and prevent companies from rejecting sick applicants.
Others include a $26 billion a year plan to provide insurance to everyone in the state in a single-payer plan; a plan to provide a basic benefit package through a large insurance pool with a $50,000 cap on benefits; a plan to require all Colorado residents to have health insurance; and a proposal to place mandates on individuals and employers to provide coverage or pay an assessment.
Lindsay said the commission recommended the state continue to study the single-payer plan. But he said it currently is unlikely because it would require multiple acts of Congress to waive requirements for veterans benefits, federal employees and other federal health programs.
That drew the wrath of about 100 protesters on the steps of the Capitol, who said mandating the purchase of a minimum benefits package "forces residents to pay for underinsurance and is direct conflict with the guiding principles of the commission."
Lindsay said one key recommendation would require insurance companies to provide coverage to any applicant who doesn't have a pre-existing medical condition.