KEYSTONE — Colorado Insurance Commissioner Michael Conway, his face bearing the golden-retriever smile of someone who is used to getting yelled at but not taking it personally, opened the floor to comments with a suitably open-ended question: As Colorado designs a publicly backed health insurance plan, what should it look like? State lawmakers this year […]
Division of Insurance
Posted inHealth, News, Politics and Government
A Colorado plan to dramatically lower health insurance prices for some now awaits federal approval
Colorado’s reinsurance program — which would lower health insurance premiums for some by using state and federal dollars to help insurance companies pay their most expensive claims — is starting to take shape, but it still faces a significant hurdle: winning approval from the federal government. State regulators last week submitted an application for the […]
Posted inBusiness, Health, News, Politics and Government
To fund their No. 1 health care priority, Colorado lawmakers look to a new source: Money originally earmarked for affordable housing
Colorado lawmakers wrestled their top health care priority back from the brink Thursday but had to cut into a potential funding source that another bill has earmarked for affordable housing. It was just the latest near-death experience for a bill to create a reinsurance program, which would help health insurers pay some of their highest-cost […]
Posted inBusiness, Health, News, Politics and Government
Colorado’s proposed first-in-the-nation health insurance program just got a big rewrite. Here’s what changed.
A big change to how Colorado proposes to fund a massive new program to bring down health insurance prices will cost the state’s hospitals as much as $150 million per year — but that’s nearly $100 million less than they would have been on the hook for under the previous plan. Lawmakers in the Colorado […]
Posted inBusiness, Growth, News
Focus on language helped drive down injuries for Spanish-speaking construction workers in Colorado
Cristobal Delgado spent three years working as a roofer after moving to the U.S. from Panama. He took a risk on every roof that he climbed because he’d never received a minute of safety training. He mentioned this during a fall-protection safety seminar given by his new employer, Haselden Construction in Centennial, which put the […]
Posted inHealth, News, Politics and Government
Summit County health care prices force families to make desperate decisions. A new plan for how consumers buy coverage could change that.
FRISCO — To Devon Howe-Czar, it was a nightmare scenario: A few weeks ago, one of her twin 7-year-old daughters fell while skiing. She was raced down the hill on a toboggan to a nurse’s station at the base, but from there Howe-Czar had to make a choice that confronts far too many families living […]
Posted inHealth, News
Here’s how Colorado insurance regulators quietly undermined a Trump administration rule on health coverage
So let’s just get this out there: This is a story ostensibly about health insurance regulations — which normally wouldn’t send a tingle up many people’s spines. But really it’s a story about an ongoing, hidden battle camouflaged in hundreds of pages of regulatory documents. Last summer, the Trump administration fired a shot at the […]
Posted inHealth, News, Politics and Government
11 charts that help explain health care costs in Colorado
When the 2019 legislative session gets underway on Friday, health care — especially how much money goes into health care — will be among the most active topics of debate. Gov.-elect Jared Polis has vowed to take on prescription drug prices and also rejigger how insurance rates are calculated. Hospitals are girding for fights over […]
Posted inBusiness, Coloradans, Health, News
Communities in the Colorado high country, hit hard by soaring premiums, offer medical cost-sharing programs to ease burden
VAIL — Chris Romer has watched families in the Vail Valley writhe under mortgage-sized payments for medical insurance. He’s watched state legislators and regulators fail to stem the soaring costs of health insurance in the Colorado high country, where a family policy easily tops $2,000 a month. And with the pending departure of the Affordable […]
Posted inHealth, News, Politics and Government
Health care is Colorado voters’ No. 1 issue. So why won’t the candidates for governor explain their plans?
To read their statements, Colorado’s major-party candidates for governor have dramatically contrasting views on how to lower the costs of health coverage in Colorado. But a closer reading of their plans reveals … well … that there’s nothing to read closely. While both Republican Walker Stapleton and Democrat Jared Polis have offered big ideas for […]