Health Insurance For All Colorado Citizens by 2010
America’s health system is breaking down and health costs are increasing more than five times the earnings increase for Colorado workers. HSAs were introduced in 2004 as a way to cut down on over-utilization, but they aren’t gaining wide acceptance, they don’t really help the problem anyway, and they won’t work. But there is a more progressive political landscape in Colorado now and it appears the health care crisis is actually going to get the attention it deserves.
Gov.-elect Bill Ritter said today he believes he can keep his promise to provide health insurance to 760,000 Coloradans who don’t have coverage by the end of this decade.
“What we believe is achievable is that we have in place a plan by 2010 that I’ll call now the Colorado Health Plan that provides some level of access to primary care through health insurance for all the citizens of Colorado,” Ritter said.
But Ritter’s idea is even coming under criticism from many other democrats in Colorado, who are calling it a budget buster. But legislators, lobbyists, and activists from Mass., who have created the nation’s first potentially viable universal health care program, will be coming to Colorado to help our lawmakers get the math to work. I hope the ideas Ritter has come up with on his own already have more cost control mechanisms built into them than the Mass universal health care plan, because even the most level headed health care experts see the Mass plan as a failure waiting to happen.
Dec 19th, 2006 at 3:34 pm
[...] In a previous article on the Colorado Health Insurance Insider, we were excited about Gov.-elect Bill Ritter’s promise to provide health insurance to the 760,000 residents of Colorado that are uninsured, but skeptical of universal health insurance plans recently enacted in other states. [...]
Jan 2nd, 2007 at 10:43 pm
[...] Is government provided health insurance a good thing? Colorado Health Insurance Insider discusses whether or not Gov. Elect Bill Ritter of Colorado will be able to fill his promise of health insurance for all of the citizens of Colorado by 2010. Michael Cannon of the Cato-at-Liberty blog criticizes Gov. Richardson’s proposal to expand Medicaid in New Mexico. In another post, Cannon looks at the possibility that Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) could be an unlimited tax-deferral mechanism.The Healthcare Economist analyzes Matt Miller’s plan for a government controlled health system in the U.S. and his criticism of big company health plans as “socialized health republics.”Health [...]
Jan 22nd, 2007 at 10:38 am
[...] As they reform the Federal tax code, they will also support the innovative measures that States are taking to address the problem of the uninsured. Governors across the Nation have put forward plans to make basic private health insurance more accessible for their citizens. Governor Ritter has promised some sort of universal health insurance for Colorado by 2010. [...]
Apr 27th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
[...] So Gov. Ritter’s Blue Ribbon Commission is hard at work finding a better healthcare system for Colorado by 2010. The most difficult question facing the commission is the public/private mix in the equation of providing Coloradoans healthcare. But the type of plan that will likely win out is not the easiest to administer, but the type of plan that is easiest to approve politically. [...]