Colorado health insurance exchange needs fee increase to remain sustainable

Ryan Maye Handy, The Gazette

“Colorado’s health insurance exchange needs a fee increase to remain financially sustainable, an outlook adding to lawmakers’ concerns about the embattled exchange’s future. But the future of the exchange is being questioned more than ever after a scathing audit released in December, highlighting hundreds of thousands of dollars of overspending. Republican legislators have banded together to try to get the exchange repealed, claiming that it bleeds taxpayer money on a one-size-fits-all model that doesn’t work.
 

Rep. Janak Joshi, R-Colorado Springs, who proposed House Bill 1066, doubts the repeal will succeed, but said it makes the Republican statement clear: Most conservatives want the exchange gone. “We could have done better on our own, anyway, so let’s get rid of it and let’s just try to see what are the other options available,” Joshi said

Advocates of the exchange tout its latest enrollment numbers – 121,000 people for 2014, said Adela Flores-Brennan, the executive director of the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative.

“If it was totally broken we wouldn’t have 121,000 (people) enrolled,” Flores-Brennan said.” 

With split control in the Colorado legislature and a Democratic governor, Lundberg recognizes that the exchange will likely be around for a while. In the meantime, he is dedicated to fixing some of its issues. “If we can find things that can make it work better for the people of Colorado, while we are stuck with it, sure,” he said.”

Read the full article here. 

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