Group pushes ideas for health care reform

Panel's draft report says don't tear down system completely

By David Montero, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published December 14, 2007 at 12:30 a.m.

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Photo by Judy DeHaas / The Rocky

Regina Hathorne, suffering from Stage 4 breast cancer, lives on a monthly disability check of $768. Of that, $290 goes to pay an insurance premium. Hathorne, 55, is a representative of a task force composed of a "vulnerable population." That panel advises the Blue Ribbon Commission for Health Care Reform. Hathorne, 55, says all Coloradans should be entitled to equal health coverage.

Colorado's sometimes Byzantine, $30 billion health care system was dissected and analyzed for a little more than a year by a blue ribbon commission seeking ways to reform it.

On Thursday, the commission unveiled a 101-page draft of a final report of its findings and ways in which they might be implemented.

Among the key recommendations was not tearing down the current system entirely, giving people "meaningful choices" about coverage, and attempting to provide coverage to about 85 percent of the state's uninsured population currently estimated to be at about 792,000 people.

Mandating that all legal residents enroll in a plan providing at least minimum coverage, allowing lower premiums for those with healthy lifestyles and having a centralized way for people and employers to get information on the cost and quality of insurance plans are also recommended.

Sometimes bleak, sometimes urgent and attempting to incorporate input from all of the group's disparate 27 members, the report will go through tweaks and changes over the next few weeks before the Blue Ribbon Commission for Health Care Reform adopts it and then presents it to the General Assembly at the end of January.

And commissioners praised how specific some of the report is.

"We've got details," Commissioner Barbara Yondorf said. "We didn't work for a whole year just to come up with general statements."

The final report mirrors a fifth proposal crafted by the panel after four other plans were analyzed.

The commission went through the draft almost page-by-page at their meeting, suggesting word changes and trying to clear up concepts that were vague.

"The report captured everything we previously approved," chairman Bill Lindsay said. "I don't think there are any big surprises in it."

The commission had deliberated last month whether it should recommend the fifth proposal to lawmakers or just present it along with the four other plans that were analyzed in detail. But commissioners decided they could recommend the fifth plan because it reflected their compromises and pulled together the best of the four other proposals.

The so-called single-payer system was the only one of the plans that provided health care coverage to everyone. But the idea of an 8 percent income tax hike to pay for it and having government running the health care system were major obstacles, even though it was noted the single-payer system would save the state about $2 billion in health care spending.

Two of the proposals mandated health insurance coverage for individuals - something that was picked up by the fifth proposal.

All of the proposals had varying degrees of success at covering Colorado's uninsured population.

A plan pitched by the Committee for Colorado Health Care Solutions was the third most effective at covering the uninsured - allowing sliding scale coverage costs for those below 400 percent of the federal poverty level. That, too, was recommended in the final report.

The federal poverty level is $20,650 for a family of four.

While the majority of the commission was mostly satisfied with the recommendations in the final draft, three dissenters wrote lengthy minority opinions.

Linda Gorman and R. Allan Jensen combined on their piece saying the commission could not agree on what needed fixing.

"Though some commission recommendations mention consumer choice and market reform, other recommendations make such reforms impossible as they would destroy or severely damage private health plans, private health insurance and private medical care," the pair wrote.

Commissioner Mark Simon argued in his dissent that there were significant omissions in the final report and the commission did not pursue or adopt solutions.

"These recommendations are likely to lead to a health care system that will be more complicated and expensive to implement and may be even more difficult for Colorado citizens to navigate through and use," he wrote.

The Colorado General Assembly created the commission in 2006 and asked it to find ways to expand coverage for the uninsured.

Final recommendations

* Require every legal resident in Colorado to have at least a minimum health coverage plan.

* Allow reduced premiums for people engaged in healthy lifestyles.

* Create an electronic health record for every resident and a statewide health information network. Currently, health records are scattered and not centralized.

* Ensure information on insurance cost and quality of coverage is available to everyone and easily accessible in one place, such as a Web site.

* Connect employers, insurers and individuals through a system yet to be developed.

* Create a consumer advocacy program.

What's next?

* Jan. 10 The commission will meet to approve the final report to the legislature.

* Jan. 31 The commission will make a presentation to lawmakers at the Old Supreme Court Chambers.

• December 14, 2007

  9:12 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  seilerKY writes:

  The key flaw in this report is summed up in its own words: "Connect employers, insurers and individuals through a system yet to be developed."

  Despite all the talk about “consumers” and “choices,” and high tech innovation,it is very obvious that this report is designed to protect the for-profit insurers.

  What good is choice when you are chronically ill or poor and have no access to affordable care?

  Who did the commission’s math? Economists in all other free-market democracies around the world have calculated the positive benefits of a national single payer system. Cost and risk are shared equitably: every taxpayer pays a little, no one pays a lot and everyone is covered? When premiums, co-pays and co-insurance are eliminated, and when profits are taken out of the mix, economists predict that 95 percent of taxpayers will pay less under a single payer plan.

  Your business groups, and especially small business owners, need to take a look at the cost of doing business in Toronto as compared to setting up in Denver.

  I am amazed that those who worry about “government-run” health care are so willing to give our tax dollars over to insurers who pay themselves very well and are accountable only to their shareholders.

  Let's envision a country where an individual can walk into a clinic and be given quality care without being asked, "Do you have insurance?"

  We can do this Colorado! We can be a better nation--we can take care of each other. Call your Rep in Washington, ask him/her to sign on as a co-sponsor to HR 676, the national single payer bill now before Congress.
  Harriette Seiler
  Kentuckians for Single Payer Healthcare

• December 14, 2007

  9:15 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  scotem writes:

  Another victory for big-business. Once again it is proven how if big corporations put a lot of money into an issue people will start acting against their own self-interest. Now we can continue the practice of increasing premiums, decreasing coverage, and paying the executives of health care corporations multi-million dollar salaries. The US pays twice as much for health care as most western nations and ranks at the bottom of the pile in terms of health of its citizens. We need strong political leadership to stand up for everyday people and take the corporate profit out of health care. Single Payer is a common insurance for everyone, with private delivery of services. Doctors still get paid, we still get choice. It is NOT socialized medicine. Wake up people!

• December 14, 2007

  9:30 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  featherrock writes:

  The government can't force citizens to obtain health insurance. It is unconstitutional. It is not necessary to promote public safety or welfare. What about Chirstian Scientists or others that eschew reliance on Medical care? The recommendations will just result in promoting and entrenching a single form of health care--that of traditional medicine. That is a system that causes hundreds of thousands of deaths per year by medical mistakes, malpractice and deaths from germs picked up at hospitals. Every citizen should be alert to this devious attempt to force socialized medicine upon us and take away another liberty. No one is going to tell me that I have to carry health coverage because some beuracrat or medical person believes I need it. The Constitution does not provide that materia medica shall make laws that curtail people's freedoms.

• December 14, 2007

  10:14 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Elwood writes:

  If this plan will save the government $2 billion dollars in health care spending, why do we need the 8% tax hike? Can't they do it so it would be revenue neutral? I guess the state wants to spend the extra on more socailistic programs.

• December 14, 2007

  12:33 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  T1anda writes:

  Harriet Seiler...Let's invision a country where someone walks into an overworked, understaffed, state run, medical soup kitchen(clinic) and is told to "go away" because they are too old and dying of a terminal disease. (Soviet Union socialized medicine) If the state pays they get to call the shots don't they?? Let's invision a country where our citizens have to leave and go to another country to get life saving medical care and medicines in order to survive (Canada socialized medicine)Ask ANY Canadian!!! They come to the U.S. for decent care. I can list many,many, many, more countries who have duped their citizens into believing that socialized, government run, single-payer, what ever you want to label it.. medicine, is the medical utopia of all plans for the people. If you want a chance for decent medical care people, then, KEEP GOVERNMENT OUT of medicine!!! It's called freedom of choice!!! Freedom is a dirty word to socialists!!

• December 14, 2007

  12:33 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  BW writes:

  I'm glad the commission has worked so hard to find a solution to help provide affordable healthcare coverage for all of it's citizens. It's time we stopped paying so much and not getting good results. People are scared of losing what healthcare coverage they have, and the insurance industry has a poverful lobby that's why single payer will never work. The cost savings of the single payer plan come at the expense of the insurance companies - the government would create ONE administrative system so we wouldn't be spending 30% of every healthcare dollar on administrative costs.

• December 14, 2007

  1:59 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Michael writes:

  "Hathorne, 55, says all Coloradans should be entitled to equal health coverage." - picture caption

  I am truly sorry for the plight of Ms. Hathorne, but her statement is frightening - if she actually means exactly what her words imply. Does she perhaps mean that at the least, all people (Coloradans) should be entitled to a minimum level of healthcare - possibly above the level it is at now and what she is receiving?
  If all of us were "entitled" to this "equal healthcare coverage", please tell me why someone who does not work, has made no plans for the future, has invested little or nothing in their education and/or in their marketable skills to earn a living should "be entitled" to the same level of healthcare (or anything for that matter) as someone who has achieved a good education, works 60 hours a week, saves and invests for the future, and also plans for the future? I AM NOT saying that Ms. Hathorne is my first example -but we all know they are out there. Ms. Hathorne's desire is right out of the communist manifesto. It demands that everyone suffer equally so that no one can succeed or to exceed the levels of anyone else. It demands mediocrity and will succeed in crushing all entrepreneurial desire to create and devlop new medical treatments, technologies, drugs, and probably also crush the supply of new doctors if they are to make the same as a bartender or auto mechanic. Why study for 8 years to make the same as not studying for 8 years? Why spend millions of $$$ to R&D a new technology if you cannot profit from it? And if there are no profits to begin with to take, then there will be NO MONEY to invest in seeking new technologies. The perfect example is how so many praise how prescription drugs from Canada are cheaper than in the USA. Do you know why? It is NOT because there are a host of cutting edge Canadian pharma companies bringing great new and cheap drugs to market - Canada has NO such compnaies that I know of. It is because the Canadian government buys huge quanitites of AMERICAN MADE drugs and resells them to its citizens at a discount or less than they paid. It is the American companies taking all the risks and spending 100's of millions of $$$ to R&D those drugs - 9 out of 10 of which fail.

• December 14, 2007

  2:07 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  seilerKY writes:

  Response to T1anda,
  Dare I admit that I was born and raised in Canada and have many relatives there--at every age and income level--some with serious illnesses. They are getting timely, innovative, high quality care. They choose their own doctors.

  Meanwhile I have friends in KY (hardworking people) who have been denied coverage, who have had to declare bankruptcy due to medical debts.

  Pro-market opponents of single payer system love to shout "socialism." We already have "socialized" programs in the US: fire and police protection, homeland security, the CDC, traditional Medicare, and the VA--all cost-effective and efficient. If those programs are not well run (as in Bldg 19 at Walter Reed), the voters demand change.
  
  Few Canadians come to the US for care. A Harvard study of border hospitals showed we treated very few Canadians.

  I hope you're open-minded enough to go see "SiCKO." Michael Moore makes our tragic situation funny, but he makes a very convincing case for single payer. Our market-based system is not working. As long as insurers reap profits from our vulnerabilities, from denying or skimping on care, we will never reform our system.
  Peace, and happy holidays!

• December 15, 2007

  5:39 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  T1anda writes:

  On June 5th 2005 the Supreme Court of Canada called their health system DANGEROUS and DEADLY.

  Chief Justice Beverly Mclachlin and Justice John Major agreed to hear cases from citizens concerning the "single payer" system.
  The bench, decided that the province of Quebec had no right to RESTRICT the FREEDOM of a person to purchase private health insurance.
  Justice John Major wrote: "The evidence in these cases show that delays in the public health care system are WIDESPREAD, and that, in some cases, PATIENTS DIE AS A RESULT OF WAITING LISTS for public health care".

  According to statistics: Approximately 1.2 million Canadians lack a family doctor and are looking for one. Others seek more urgent care. Toronto was shaken recently when the media reported that a retired hockey player was FORCED to wait more than a month for chemo therapy because of bed shortages at the largest cancer hospital in Canada. Remember when health care is "free" doctors will be overbooked and overworked with the rush of patients to attain this so-called "free" care. Why in the world would a doctor be willing to give excellent medical care for some faceless bureaucracy when he or she gets paid a once or twice a month no matter how many patients they treat or turn away??

  U.S. health care may have it's woes, but the siren song of socialized medicine (single pay)offers no solution!!!

  Single payer government run health care is a prescription for an early grave.

  Michael Moore should have named his movie Slicko...let's face it he makes movies for the money only!! Earnest research means nothing to Moore his only concern is the almighty dollar!

• December 17, 2007

  2:50 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  SteveM writes:

  Why is a statewide system of managed care run by the state off the table if it would save $2 billion? Why cannot we follow Manitoba and implement our nation's first state-managed health care system opening the door to following in the footsteps of every other democratic, free, industrial nation of our stature from Japan to Great Britain to Germany to Canada. We are programmed to fear managed state systems as the enemy, and yet, we have no problem with the state running our schools, police, fire, and postal system. They can all be socialized and nobody raises an eyebrow, but when we talk about health care, we are heretics.

  People are afraid of an 8% tax, but don't realize that this tax would mean the end of health insurance premiums, co-pays, huge costs for prescription medicine, etc. Nobody is mentioning how much money a family might actually be saving vs. an 8% tax. Companies would be more likely to relocate to Colorado knowing they'd never have to pay for health care premium for their employees. 8% is far less than most people who have insurance are paying. And most people have insurance have it through their companies that are now paying huge percentages of the premiums. Insurance companies are for-profit businesses. They advertise, they pay lots of employees, etc. Therefore, money they collect does not go 100% to paying claims, right? That means a large part of the high cost of insurance isn't even for the insured. Cutting all this out of the system would save billions of dollars annually, attract more jobs to the state, and make our state a beacon of civility in the nation proving that not all Americans are ridiculous. We avoid a Canadian-style health care system why? Are we too proud to admit that we don't do everything right? Why do we allow insurance companies to become gigantic profit mongering machines while so many lie uninsured?

• December 17, 2007

  2:23 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  ishmael writes:

  RE Posting by Michael on December 14, 2007

  "If all of us were "entitled" to this "equal healthcare coverage", please tell me why someone who does not work, has made no plans for the future, has invested little or nothing in their education and/or in their marketable skills to earn a living should "be entitled" to the same level of healthcare (or anything for that matter) as someone who has achieved a good education, works 60 hours a week, saves and invests for the future, and also plans for the future?"

  First of all - There are thousands of cases documenting that people who have insurance yet b/c of rising costs and the like, they still suffer under the current system - these people are often folks called "working middle-class," many of whom are gainfully employed, have planned for the future by saving what they can, and have done what's needed to try to pull themselves up by the bootstrap. You must not be one of those millions.

  Aside from being arrogant and irresponsible, you must also either be incredibly blessed with good genetics or an oil and gas hedge fund to be able to "invest and plan for the future." You are also ignorant in asserting that aside from you, somehow the rest of us are lazy, short-sighted, and uneducated and those are the main and only reasons for our struggles.

  Another thought - Why should you pay for someone else b/c you think they are lazy, stupid and overall a crappy human being? Because in the end, if they keep going to the ER for medical care, you WILL pay for it in the form of increased premiums, co-pays, taxes, etc. Either way, you must pay - now or later.

  And you think you are a forward thinker? Plans ahead? Try to plan ahead for the day that YOU can no longer afford your health care.

  Besides, whatever happened to human decency, generosity toward those in need, and humility and dignity of one self? The Bible says to do all those things. The Constitution gives everyone an inalienable right to exist and prosper. These are American values - to deny them is to be a social terrorist and spiritual heretic.

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