Kefalas Bill To Authorize Study of Single-Payer Health Care System in State Gets Committee Exam Today

A bill that would create a privately-funded review commission to study how a publicly-funded and privately-managed single-payer health system would work in Colorado was approved this evening by a House committee.

HB 1273, which is sponsored by Rep. John Kefalas, D-Fort Collins, would not create a single-payer health system. The measure does, however, include a schedule under which the legislature would consider whether to create such a delivery system in the state.

“Our objective is to create a more streamlined system that focuses on better-value, quality health care,” Kefalas said. “Almost 800,000 folks in Colorado are uninsured. We have to do better. The Health Care Authority will look for 21st century solutions. Right now, our medical industry is drowning in paperwork. Energy and resources are being wasted on inefficiencies when they ought to be directed toward building a healthy, insured Colorado workforce.”

If the bill becomes law, and the study commission it creates is formed, adequately financed, and prepares its report on time, the General Assembly would take up the question of establishing a single-payer health care system in 2011.

The commission would be made up of 23 members. It would explore how a single-payer system not managed or controlled by the state government would work and how, if the state is not paying for health care services on behalf of Colorado residents, the system could be financed.

The proposed Colorado Health Care Authority would have to raise funds privately to pay for its work. If enough funds were not raised by July 1, 2011, the work of the commission would end.

The cost of the commission's work is estimated to be about $1.4 million.

A commission established in 2007 by Gov. Bill Ritter, which also studied health care delivery in the state, said that a single-payer health care system merited further study but did not include it in a list of recommendations for reform Because members concluded existing federal law does not permit a state to adopt a single-payer delivery system.

A report issued by the Colorado Health Institute in 2006 said that 17 percent of the state's residents do not have health insurance.

The House Business Affairs & Labor Committee sent the bill to the House Appropriations Committee on a 5-4 vote.

With the exceptions of Rep. Joe Rice, D-Littleton, and Rep. Larry Liston, R-Colorado Springs, who were absent, all of the committee's Democrats supported the bill and all of the panel's GOP members opposed it.

Hagedorn Introduces Broad Healthcare Reform Legislation

A bill that aims to get health insurance coverage into the hands of 800,000 Colorado residents who don't currently have it was introduced in the Senate March 28.

SB 217 would allow health insurers to provide the state with plans to expand coverage. A commission to study ways of making participation in those plans available to people who don't have health insurance would be created and would have to report to the General Assembly in 2009.

The measure would call for the use of federal block grant funds provided Colorado for health and other purposes to subsidize the premiums needed to secure the participation in the private sector health plans by uninsured individuals.

A commission appointed last year issued a report in January that concluded that extending coverage to all of the state's uninsured could cost as much as $1.5 billion.

The measure also includes a coverage mandate. All residents of the state would be required by law, if the bill is enacted, to obtain private health insurance coverage. In exchange, health insurance providers would be required to issue a policy to anyone who applies for one.

In a report published in the Denver Business Journal, sponsor Sen. Bob Hagedorn, D-Aurora, said that the approach proposed by his bill is the only practical alternative to a single-payer, government-run health care system.

The report also quoted Hagedorn as saying he has secured bipartisan support for the measure, including from Sen. Steve Johnson, R-Fort Collins, and Reps. Tom Massey, R-Poncha Springs, and Ellen Roberts, R-Durango.

Massachusetts imposed a coverage mandate on its residents in 2007. According to a recent Boston Globe article, the program in that state is expected to cost $1.35 billion per year by 2011, up from $158 million in the first year of the program's life.

Vermont and Maine have also launched efforts at achieving universal private health insurance coverage in those states.