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May 5, 2008 9:43 pm US/Mountain
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It's Crunch Time At Capitol Over Health Care
DENVER (CBS4) ―
State lawmakers must settle health insurance issues before the session ends on Wednesday. They have a mandatory midnight deadline.
A top priority of the Democrats has been making it easier for Coloradans to get health care. At the beginning of this session, Gov. Bill Ritter said in his State of the State address he would like to see all Coloradans covered by health insurance by 2010. Right now about 750,000 do not have it. Lawmakers are claiming some progress.
Legislation was passed that made an additional 57,000 children eligible for health insurance.
"We increased eligibility up to 225 percent of the federal poverty level for the children's basic health plan," Sen. Bob Hagedorn said.
The session also passed a bill to make it easier to understand what some say are impossibly confusing health care bills.
"We did take a positive step when we passed a bill to require hospitals and insurance companies to post their common charges and their common reimbursement rates to the public so the people know what things cost," Sen. Shawn Mitchell said. "So they can shop around for the most economical plan and the most economical care."
Lawmakers also considered a bill forcing insurance companies to apply to state government for permission to raise their rates.
"That sounds attractive, but it doesn't work," Mitchell said. "The states that have that system actually see their costs go up because it drives competitors out of the market."
Several lawmakers said they really didn't see much to actually help reduce health care costs and that several new government mandates will raise rates.
"That's going to decrease the opportunity for more citizens to be covered with health insurance, and unfortunately, we've done some of that this year by putting mandates on health insurers," Sen. Nancy Spence said.
"I know there are a lot of people who are frustrated with the pace of change," said Edie Sonn, a lobbyist with the Colorado Medical Society said. "They say we're not going fast enough."
Sonn said the change has to come incrementally because the long-term fix is so complicated.
"Then your perspective changes and you see solutions that wouldn't have been viable three steps back," Sonn said. "Or you see some of the ideas you had before are not going to be viable anymore."
Of course if the solution were easy, somebody would have fixed it by now. Several lawmakers said even explaining it is not a sound bite, more like a seminar.
Another health insurance bill still being considered would create a state office of insurance ombudsman. The office would help consumers with their questions and concerns.
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