Colorado Senate passes bill mandating 18% premium reduction in four years
That plan, like Medicare and Medicaid, would set limits on what it would pay providers for medical treatment.
The Colorado state Senate on Wednesday passed a bill requiring insurance carriers to gradually lower premiums by 18% by 2025. It also calls on the state’s commissioner of insurance to develop a standardized health insurance plan that private carriers would have to offer on the individual and small-group markets.
That plan, like Medicare and Medicaid, would set limits on what it would pay providers for medical treatment, setting it at 135% of Medicare rates to providers and 155% of what Medicare pays hospitals, according to “The Daily Sentinel” in Grand Junction, Colo.
Related: COVID pandemic: A death knell for Colorado’s public option?
“Whether you are a raft guide in Crested Butte, a small business owner in Denver or a ranching family in Bennett, this bill will make a real difference in your quality of life,” said Sen. Kerry Donovan, a main sponsor of the bill. “More access means that Coloradans can get the care they need closer to where they live; lower premiums mean more savings headed into college and retirement funds’ and improved health equity looks like providers living in, working in and reflecting the communities that they serve.”
The bill is awaiting final approval in the House before being sent to Democratic Gov. Jared Polis. The original House bill, which called for creating a state-run public option to be offered on Colorado’s health care exchange if insurance companies didn’t voluntarily lower premiums 20% by the end of 2024, was amended after resistance from providers and hospitals.
America’s Health Care Future, a Washington, D.C.-based alliance of hospitals, insurance companies and pharmaceutical lobbyists, said the bill will cause providers to shift costs to other patients. Republican Sen. Jim Smallwood, who works in the insurance industry, said that will happen because of the rate-setting the bill attempts.
“When you rate-set doctors and hospitals to the extent that the bill prescribes, that is where these theoretical savings are supposed to materialize,” he said. “That is not going to happen. We will be right here again 12 months from now and 24 months from now and 36 months from now talking about why health care is still broken across our country.”
Sen. Bob Gardner, also a Republican, said the measure will force providers to provide care at an unsustainable cost, which would drive providers out of the state. “This bill will have serious implications, negative implications and consequences for quality and availability for health care in Colorado,” he said. “I’ve carried legislation on the cost issue… every time balancing quality and availability. This bill fails to do that.”
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