For those of you who were unable to attend CCHI and CCLP’s joint legislative kick-off event this past Tuesday at the Colorado Health Capitol, please enjoy this report on the evening’s affairs.
To set the scene, we were thrilled to have over 140 total attendees with roughly 40 of those able to come in person.
The night kicked off with a presentation from Representative Iman Jodeh from House District 41. As a long-time advocate and partner in health care reform work, Representative Jodeh reemphasized her ongoing commitment to and prioritization of health care reform going into the 2024 session. Notably, her newborn baby made a few appearances both drawing giddy “Aws” from the crowd and enriching Rep Jodeh’s stated dedication to maternal and reproductive health. We are incredibly grateful to Representative Jodeh for her time during this event and for her continued partnership in this work.
Representative Jodeh was followed by an array of presenters from CCLP and CCHI who spoke to their organization’s policy priorities in the 2024 session.
From CCLP we heard about the Colorado Equal Justice Fund which aims to increase vital funding for legal aid and redistribute civil court filing fee burden along a more progressive curve. CCLP is also working to systemically redistribute wealth through various financial programs including increasing the state Earned Income Tax Credit, the state Child Tax Credit, and by flattening TABOR refunds. Lastly, CCLP will be diving into the central topic of housing in Colorado through their work on mobile homeowner protections and just-cause evictions. More information about CCLP’s 2024 policy priorities can be found HERE.
As per our name, CCHI will be focusing our legislative session capacity on bills protecting consumers in the health care space. We are supporting legislation that addresses issues around continuity of care, a single-payer study, prior authorization reform, and addressing workplace violence in health care facilities. Excitingly, CCHI will also be engaging in a bill that may extend hard-fought surprise billing protections to ground ambulances. Lastly, our organization will continue to be involved in legislation around the Hospital Discounted Care law, passed in 2021, to which some changes may be suggested during this session. More information about CCHI’s 2024 policy priorities can be found HERE.
Post speakers, we broke for some drinks and delicious Mediterranean food provided by Yahya’s!
Now onto the reason why you should have come in person! Our amazing event coordinators put together a primarily policy-focused game of Jeopardy and wow what a hit. Three teams competed with one ultimately claiming the highly coveted prize of extra drink tickets to our legislative roundup event.
Below I have done my best to retroactively document some stats from the event.
Table 1.
*Mistakes made exclude the wild amount of buzzing in too early and failing to frame answers as a question.
The question that caused the greatest amount of out-of-seat-jumping and general competitive commotion…
Question: This tax policy artificially and inequitably constrains Colorado’s state budget and general fund.
Answer: What is TABOR?
The question that was followed by the longest prolonged silence of the night…
Question: 2023 is the first time the Denver Broncos have beat the Kansas City Chiefs since this year.
Answer: What is 2015?
Team 1 started the night off strong, trading Health Policy questions with Prior Authorization for the Win. However moving into the 2nd quarter, Team Merge found their stride scooping up a decent number of Housing Policy points. As a tightly contested start to the game, Prior Authorization for the Win (otherwise known as team by the wall) ultimately took a strong lead and secured the final win.
In conclusion this is how I would map out the energy of the night:
My closing remarks:
- Structured fun can make for a great time.
- Policy wonks are often very competitive.
- Thank goodness for our development team.
- Everyone should come to our Kick-Off event next year (and our Leg Wrap Up event for that matter too)
Cheers,
Sophia
CCHI Policy Fellow