Healthcare battle takes shape in the Colorado legislature
| By Alan Franklin - Mar 31st, 2008 at 2:50 pm EDT |
It's often the case that big sweeping ideas, however justifiable or needed, are tough to implement. It's been the case here in Colorado where proposals for comprehensive reform of healthcare finance and delivery have met with fierce opposition from those who stand to lose from reforming the system, as well as many more decisionmakers who are supportive of the broader goal but stymied by the daunting logistics of comprehensive healthcare reform. In that situation, incremental change emerges as the only way to move forward meaningfully.
With that understood (if lamented a little bit), check out two very important healthcare bills before the Colorado General Assembly, reported on by the Denver Post today.
It's looking like these bills will constitute the "showdown" between reformers and the insurance industry for this year. It's true they don't represent comprehensive reform, but they don't impede from such reform in the future--and will help relieve the healthcare cost pressure on Colorado working families in the interim.
By establishing oversight of skyrocketing healthcare rate increases, and ensuring a consistent process to make sure families who file claims get the coverage they need, these bills don't establish anything that, for example, the Public Utilities Commission doesn't already do with utility rates--and few will disagree that healthcare is every bit as important as your light bill.
We'll be updating our network with ways you can help pass these bills in the coming days.
With that understood (if lamented a little bit), check out two very important healthcare bills before the Colorado General Assembly, reported on by the Denver Post today.
Key Democratic lawmakers unveiled legislation Sunday that would toughen regulations on health insurers, including a bill that would let the state reject premium increases.
The group of Democrats, which included House Speaker Andrew Romanoff and Senate Majority Leader Ken Gordon , both of Denver, said the bills would hold the insurance industry more accountable.
But industry representatives said two of the proposals were either harmful or unnecessary.
The bill most likely to cause a rumble at the Capitol is from Rep. Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora. Carroll's legislation, to be filed this week, would allow state insurance regulators to reject premium hikes by health insurers.
Insurance companies now are required to disclose rates but don't need state approval to increase premiums.
Carroll said health-insurance premiums in Colorado increased 60 percent from 2001 to 2005, while average wages rose only 13 percent in the same period. The rate of inflation, meanwhile, was 10 percent, she said.
"If it seems like you're paying more for less, that's because you are," Carroll said.
Carroll said that while health-insurance premiums have shot up, insurance companies have continued to maintain multibillion-dollar surpluses, and their chief executives keep getting heftier compensation packages. Colorado has the seventh-highest health-insurance rates in the nation, she said....
Romanoff and Gordon are sponsoring a bill that would strengthen laws requiring insurance companies to pay claims in a timely manner.
Romanoff said too many Coloradans have to go through a "Kafka-esque hell" of appeal, denial and reappeal to get insurance companies to pay legitimate claims.
One woman at the news conference said she fought an insurance company for two years to get a $500 claim paid for her son's speech therapy. The insurer eventually paid the claim, she said, but now is denying another speech-therapy claim.
It's looking like these bills will constitute the "showdown" between reformers and the insurance industry for this year. It's true they don't represent comprehensive reform, but they don't impede from such reform in the future--and will help relieve the healthcare cost pressure on Colorado working families in the interim.
By establishing oversight of skyrocketing healthcare rate increases, and ensuring a consistent process to make sure families who file claims get the coverage they need, these bills don't establish anything that, for example, the Public Utilities Commission doesn't already do with utility rates--and few will disagree that healthcare is every bit as important as your light bill.
We'll be updating our network with ways you can help pass these bills in the coming days.
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