A Brief History of Colorado Health Care Reform
Colorado has had a long history of moving towards universal health care.
These are some significant dates in that timeline.
2007: 208 Commission
- Public call for statewide health care reform resulted in 28 comprehensive plans and 3 partial.
- Of 28 comprehensive plans, 7 of them were fundamentally single payer in nature.
- The Commission resisted analyzing single payer, but relented due to strong public pressure at their meetings.
- The 208 Commission decided to have The Lewin Group model 4 different models, including one single payer option.
- The 208 Commission couldn't agree on a plan they liked, so they also decided to create a Frankenstein special as a conglomeration of various features.
- The final report showed that only one plan, the single payer model, actually saved money.
- The final report showed that only one plan, the single payer model, actually covered everybody.
- The final report showed that the single payer plan would save $1.4 Billion in Year 1, and savings would increase year-over-year.
- The 208 Commission buried this finding by claiming it was the most expensive plan -- BUT ONLY WHEN COMPARING THE PUBLIC FUNDING COMPONENT. All the other modeled plans were far more expensive and did not significantly improve coverage or cost.
2011: ACA-related activities
- Colorado Health Insurance Exchange implemented
- Colorado All Payer Claims Database implemented
2016: Amendment 69, citizen initiative for universal health care
- Citizen initiative gathered signatures to appear on 2016 ballot
- For-profit opposition (Koch Bros, etc.) funded dark money advertising campaign >$4 Million, drowning out all facts
- We all know what happened with the 2016 election and the influence of dark money.
HB19-1176: Health Care Cost Savings Act of 2019
- This bill funded a study to compare the current system, multi-payer universal health care, and single payer health care.
- Again, results showed a single payer system saves billions of dollars a year.
- The study showed improvements across all metrics of health and performance and costs, as well as societal impacts.
- The Colorado School of Public Health developed a model that can be used during future system analysis
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