Health plans up in air

Panel has 4 ideas for coverage, but vote likely required

Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News

Published May 22, 2007 at midnight

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Four health care proposals chosen by a blue ribbon commission would move Colorado to near-universal coverage by about 2010.

But whatever emerges likely would require voter approval because of increased taxes, officials said Monday.

The state legislature and the governor appointed members of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Healthcare Reform. Their task is to recommend three to five plans that would improve access to health care while keeping down costs.

Three plans chosen from the 31 presented to the commission would mandate coverage by requiring that either the individual or the employer prove that coverage is provided.

The fourth would guarantee coverage for those who earn less than 300 percent of the federal poverty level - $30,630 for an individual; $61,950 for a family of four.

The plans drew a sharp rebuke from a free-market advocate, who cited concerns about increased government control.

"We're disappointed," Lin Zen-ser, of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine, said at a news conference announcing the four plans. "They take away the freedoms of individuals and doctors."

But the prevailing sentiment among commissioners is that too many Coloradans can't afford health insurance. As a result, they either go without or rely on emergency rooms for routine care, a practice that drives up the costs for everyone.

There are about 770,000 uninsured Coloradans.

Commission chairman Bill Lindsay said the next step is to bring in the Lewin Group, a consulting firm, to assess the options' costs and impacts.

The firm should be able to say how many Coloradans would be uninsured under each of the four plans, and under a fifth plan that the commissioners may carve out from the best ideas of the other four, Lindsay said.

Commissioner Linda Gorman, from the free-market Independence Institute in Golden, disagreed with the four selected plans, and said she doesn't think anyone can estimate with any certainty how many Coloradans would still be uninsured.

The commission's final report, which likely will include a preferred option, is due to the legislature in January.

scanlon@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-442-8729

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