Lawmakers consider scaled-down health insurance for Colorado's uninsured

DENVER — State lawmakers are considering request wellness insurance companies to come up up with some scaled-down insurance programs with an oculus toward mandating insurance for all Coloradans.The proposal (Senate Bill 217) was backed by the Senate Health and Person Services Committee Wednesday but still confronts a series of hurdles, including some political ones, before it could take form two old age from now.If the measure go throughs this year, the state would inquire insurance companies to suggest programs by the end of adjacent twelvemonth that supply at least 80 percentage of the insurance that state employees acquire now. If the governor urges using one of those plans, state lawmakers in 2010 could then back it and necessitate that uninsured people purchase them and supply subsidies to people who can't afford it. That could necessitate a taxation addition which would have got got to be approved by electors in the 2010 election, when the governor and most of the legislative assembly would be up for re-election.The bill's sponsor, Sen. British Shilling Hagedorn, acknowledged that would be a tough sell."We don't have the money. The inquiry is make we make nothing?" Hagedorn said.Some wellness attention advocates, including AARP, oppose the program because they're worried insurance companies would suggest stripped down policies that wouldn't cover things such as as hospitalization or prescription drugs without any bounds on out-of-pocket costs.Hagedorn said authorities ordinances requiring insurance companies to include specific sorts of insurance in wellness programs was one ground they have got go so expensive. He said the program wouldn't work if lawmakers did that.If the state offerings a scaled-down plan, Association for the Advancement of Retired Persons lobbyist Uncle Tom Gloria Swanson said some companies could chose to drop wellness attention insurance for their employees.The Service Employees International Union, which have been pushing for wellness attention reform, endorses giving Hagedorn's thought a chance. Lobbyist George C. Scott Wasserman said the labor union acknowledges that private companies will go on to be the primary beginning for wellness coverage but he said the coverage necessitates to be adequate and not just affordable.Gov. Bill Ritter have proposed disbursement $25 million to cover about a one-fourth of the 800,000 people in Centennial State without insurance. Lawmakers have got got also passed a nonbinding declaration stating that all children should have wellness coverage by 2010, whether it's through private coverage or public programs.Hagedorn's measure will be considered by the Senate Appropriations Committee next.