Colorado Board looks to previous report that demonstrated a Single Payer plan is the only way to save money and the only way to cover everyone

HCAC supported the Health Care Cost Savings Act of 2019 that passed the Colorado Legislature last year with bipartisan support.  Several members of the HCAC board testified in front of committee in support of this legislation.  The bill allows for an analysis to compare how we would pay for different universal health care systems in Colorado.  The 15-member state task force, including bill sponsor Rep. Emily Sirota and author T. R. Reid have begun their work.  

They hired a firm to summarize relevant universal health care studies because they wanted to understand what work had already been done.  In December, this firm shared 16 state and national studies with the task force.  Task force members also decided to consider the results from the 208 Commission (2007), whose purpose was to identify strategies to expand health care coverage and decrease costs for Coloradans.  (It should be noted that HCAC’s proposal, “The Colorado Health Services Plan,” was the only plan submitted to the 208 Commission, after analysis, found to cover everyone while costing less.) 

The Colorado Department of Healthcare Policy and Financing will post a document quote, the first step toward hiring the expert analyst to perform the comparative study of the costs of several universal healthcare systems.  The deadline for the completion of the analysis and submission of the report is January 2021.