Colorado Consumer Health Initiative » 2007

Archive for June, 2007

COLORADO CONSUMER HEALTH INITIATIVE AT THE CAPITOL: 2007 Legislative Wrap Up

Monday, June 18th, 2007

The Colorado Consumer Health Initiative actively supported legislation this session to influence reform for the private insurance market, expanding access to quality public health care programs for the uninsured, and improving the quality of care delivered through transparency measures, reporting procedures, and certification requirements for health care providers.

CCHI tracked over 100 bills in the Colorado General Assembly. We testified over a dozen times on key legislative priority bills, and sent out 2,412 emails through our Health Action Network. The bills CCHI strongly supported were covered by statewide print, television, and radio outlets – ensuring healthcare consumers were well informed and able to take action.

CCHI’s coalition of dedicated health care consumer advocates helped pass a priority piece of health care legislation, House Bill 1355 (McGihon, Hagedorn, Massey). This bill is an important step towards the goal of smart, strategic, and sustainable healthcare reform. With the help of CCHI member organization Progress Now, we gathered over 700 petition signatures from across the state in just a matter of days! CCHI Executive Director Dede De Percin hand-delivered the petitions in support of HB 1355 to Governor Ritter’s desk. Many of the consumers and business owners who signed included comments about their personal experience being “rated up” by insurers.

Health insurance reform signed into law: Measure to prohibit rate increases based on employee health status and claims history signed by Governor Ritter

Monday, June 4th, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

6.1.07

CONTACT:

Ben Davis

303.522.6790

DENVER, CO: HB 1355, a measure to alleviate Colorado’s health care crisis, was signed into law by Governor Ritter today.

The new law, sponsored by Representative McGihon (D-Denver) and Senator Hagedorn (D-Aurora), will prohibit health insurance companies from rating up customers as a result of their health status or claims history. Health insurers are no longer able to increase the cost of their premiums for customers with current or past health conditions.

Despite strong opposition from the insurance industry, lawmakers approved the measure to reduce the challenges that small business owners and health care consumers face when trying to provide coverage for their employees.

In Colorado, the business community is comprised mostly of small firms with 50 or fewer employees. Small business owners are increasingly unable to offer their employees health insurance coverage, faced with rising costs, difficult decisions to either “thin” down insurance coverage or discontinue health insurance coverage altogether. (more…)

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