State Legislation

The Chamber supports the necessary clarifications to the telehealth law in this bill because it will continue to improve rural patient’s access to quality health care through the use of technology and results in lower cost of care.

This bill is a mandate that interferes with private contracts and restricts carriers’ ability to create their own network as a strategy that can help businesses and their employees contain costs of health care.

This legislation sets a dangerous precedent by putting into statute a mandate for how and where a business must operate as a condition of doing business with the state.

This bill would be costly and burdensome for employers as they would be required to implement an additional employee payroll deduction. It would also impose significant administrative and operational costs.

The Chamber is working with more than 30 organizations to identify industry-wide strategies that address Colorado’s rising health care costs. While this bill highlights an existing challenge within our healthcare system, we are concerned that this proposal exceeds the state’s legal jurisdiction. There is uncertainty regarding the state’s ability to require federally regulated companies to submit data; additionally, there is considerable inconsistency in the types of pharmaceutical organizations this regulation would impact.

Chamber members have consistently identified rising cost as the biggest concern with regard to health care. This bill undermines the ability of health plans to negotiate with pharmacies to provide patients with lower-cost options thereby making it more costly for businesses to afford these benefits.

Over the past year the Chamber has worked with more than 30 health care organizations to identify industry-wide strategies to address Colorado’s rising health care costs. The group developed robust transparency and disclosure recommendations, understanding that they are key to analysis and consumer education. This bill will provide more transparency in health care, which can help consumers better navigate their care as well as other components of the industry better understand the factors contributing to health care costs.

This bill ensures that free-standing emergency departments align with other specialties in that they have their own specific license. It allows better tracking of data related to free standing emergency departments, which is helpful for consumers and other components of the healthcare industry.

This bill encourages businesses to create and invest in a family and medical leave insurance program for their employees and incentivizes employees to contribute to their own accounts. It also rewards companies that are already providing such programs to their employees. The Chamber supports the flexibility this legislation gives to businesses while also encouraging them to provide a program of this kind to their employees.

Chamber members have consistently identified rising cost as the biggest concern regarding health care. This bill undermines the ability of health plans to negotiate with pharmacies to provide patients with lower-cost options thereby making it more costly for businesses to afford these benefits. Although access is a critical component in any health care conversation, the benefits of increasing access in this case do not outweigh the significant impact to cost and quality this legislation stands to generate.

Over the past year the Chamber has worked with more than 30 health care organizations and dozens of non-industry members to identify strategies to address Colorado’s rising health care costs. During that process, addressing out-of-network charges at in-network facilities was discussed and prioritized by the Chamber’s members. This bill will help reduce surprise billing and ultimately help lower overall costs of health care.

This bill risks exposing proprietary and trade secret information in a way that could ultimately result in increased health care costs.

While we support efforts to increase transparency, this bill risks exposing proprietary information that has no direct tie to consumer benefit. The bill also provides no oversight on the Commissioner’s role as arbiter to decide what drug information to release.

This proposal is a one-size-fits-all approach that gives sweeping authority to an appointed individual, shifts costs to the employer-based coverage market, adds inefficiencies and puts us at risk for unintended consequences that harm Coloradans on subsidies and increases rates in parts of the state. Although language in the bill intends to prevent cost shifting, there is no assurance that premiums will not have to be adjusted in the fully insured market to make up for the decreased reimbursement rates from the Colorado Option. While the Chamber supports a market-based effort that increases access to health care, drives down costs for all, and is flexible for the wide range of communities, workers and businesses that make up our state, that simply isn’t what is being proposed.

While we support efforts to make health care more affordable for all Coloradans and educating consumers on how they can access programs designed to help with costs, this bill would limit what health care providers can charge to patients when they must access non-discounted services, such as emergency care, to only 80% of Medicare rates, which would force providers who treat all patients regardless of ability to pay, to shift costs to the private sector. It would also limit the means that debt collectors have to recoup debt that could have implications beyond the health care industry.

With health care premiums in the individual market falling in Colorado and our economy still in recovery, now is not the time to introduce sweeping and risky legislation that would increase costs for most Coloradans, reduce competition and consumer choice, and transfer power to an appointed member of the executive branch without appropriate legislative oversight. The timelines and arbitrary thresholds in the bill almost guarantee that the private sector won’t have the time or opportunity to meet the goals of lowering premiums, turning a public option into a foregone conclusion. The Chamber is also opposed to any form of price-setting, and this legislation directs carriers to provide a specific government product and dictates the cost of that product, ensuring that we lose all the value associated with a competitive marketplace. We believe in a market-based, stepwise approach that reduces health care costs for all Coloradans.

Rather than the impacted department eliminating a contract per the agreement, the legislature is attempting to impact an existing state contract less than one year after the state entered it. While we applaud the goal of this bill to reduce health care expenses, we are concerned that this bill sets a bad precedent far beyond this industry and makes it less attractive for the private sector to do business with the state.

The Chamber, along with more than 100 diverse stakeholders as part of the Colorado Health Policy Coalition, has identified a set of principles that we urge Congress to consider when examining a replacement plan for the Affordable Care Act (ACA). We oppose a repeal of the ACA without a clear replacement because of the uncertainty and potential cost increases a repeal without replacement would create for businesses.

Last year, the governor imposed a $100 million reduction in Hospital Provider Fee (HPF) collection to help balance the budget for Colorado, which resulted in the loss of an additional $100 million in matched funds for Colorado by the federal government. This year that number increased to $195 million, and it will continue to rise exponentially unless reclassification of the HPF is addressed.

This bill is a mandate that interferes with private contracts and restricts carriers’ ability to create their own network as a strategy that can help businesses and their employees contain costs of health care.

This bill is a mandate that interferes with private contracts, and with the ability to directly visit a specialist, will increase health care costs.

The Chamber is working with more than 30 health care organizations to identify industry-wide strategies that address Colorado’s rising health care costs. Throughout this process, requests for transparency and continue to emerge. The disclosures required in this bill could help patients make more informed decisions about the health care services they receive.

End-of-life care is one of most costly parts of the health care system. This bill streamlines this process by creating a single electronic repository, allowing health care providers to more easily locate advance medical directives for treatment. This will honor and respect a patient’s wishes and, in some cases, may help contain costs by allowing physicians to more quickly access this important information. Best practices should be considered when implementing this legislation to ensure ease of use and ability to update, should a patient change their mind on their directive.

This bill will result in increased health insurance premiums, which is the opposite of what we need in Colorado. Chamber members have consistently identified rising cost as the biggest concern regarding health care. The benchmark payments in this proposal are set at such a high rate that they will result in higher costs well beyond current rates.

Bill sponsors have accepted various amendments on this bill to:
• create a task force to be appointed by the governor and General Assembly;
• have the task force study options of a third party to run a family leave program;
• require a study of the costs and financial impact of a family and medical leave program;
• require recommendations be presented to members of the General Assembly and the governor; and
• require that the General Assembly introduce a new bill next session to implement the program based on the results of the study.
Legislators took a critical step to better understand a program that will undoubtedly impact all working Colorado families. The Chamber feels confident that these changes will allow for a thorough analysis of the implications of such a program and that the results will be taken into account when reviewing the proposed program next legislative session.

This bill will legitimize a practice that essentially incentivizes the inflation of damages, driving up costs for everyone involved in a personal injury case and making it easier for health care lien companies to operate in Colorado. It also puts injured parties at risk for extensive claims if they lose their case. Additionally, it will result in similar companies moving to Colorado and increase the volume of personal injury claims.

These peer reviews help ensure patient safety and maintain a high quality of care. We join the health care industry in support of protections that allow for this peer review process to continue.

This bill will reduce access to care for individuals needing these services by increasing costs to a point that will likely be unsustainable for home-care agencies, potentially putting them out of business. It also created significant privacy concerns for workers. Most importantly, however, it jeopardizes Colorado’s balance between right-to-work and union agreements by creating a back-door option for unionizing these workers. The Chamber has consistently opposed any efforts to weaken the existing Labor Peace Act because its statutory framework has provided a balance to ensure a healthy relationship between business and labor in this state. Colorado’s Labor Peace Act is a unique legal middle ground between right-to-work and union states that has contributed to Colorado’s economic well-being.

This bill would hinder a business’s ability to create a safe and healthy work environment and potentially cause non-compliance when certain standards, for example OSHA, direct them to require vaccinations for their employees. The Chamber’s primary interest is lowering the cost of health care, and preventive care, like immunizations, is a documented way to do that.

This bill will allow for legislators to more fully understand financial implications of legislation on health care plans, allowing them to make more informed decisions when voting on and sponsoring legislation.

While the Chamber supports providing paid sick leave to employees, we must ensure that employers who are today providing these types of benefits are recognized as meeting the requirements in this bill, even if they have different terms of use. As it is currently written, the bill would also interfere with collective bargaining agreements, which are thoroughly negotiated private contracts between businesses and union representatives. The current language in the bill would force employers and employees in collective bargaining agreements to apply different sick leave terms and conditions in Colorado and result in the need to renegotiate national agreements years in the making.

Rather than addressing the root cause of health insurance premium growth, this bill simply shifts costs from the individual market to the fully insured market, a market comprised of small and medium-sized businesses. Carriers will be forced to pass on the new fee to employers in the form of premium increases, which businesses cannot afford during this challenging time. Rather than just picking up the state’s share of reinsurance funding, this bill also aims to create additional revenue for a variety of other programs and expansion on the backs of the businesses. While we understand many Coloradans are challenged to pay for health insurance premiums today, increasing the affordability for one group by decreasing affordability for another is not the way to solve this challenge. Many small and medium-sized Colorado businesses were already struggling to provide health insurance benefits for their employees before the public health crisis and this bill only exacerbates those challenges for employers and their employees.

The current law sets the statute of limitations for claims at two years, which is the national norm and encourages people to bring claims in a timely manner. This law would greatly extend that statute of limitations and also jeopardize our state’s policy that parents are responsible for taking care of a minor’s medical needs and recovering damages on their behalf.

This bill helps legislators and constituents understand upfront the costs that Coloradans may incur as the result of health benefit mandates. This is particularly important given the changes to health care policy that are under consideration in the current session that would require premium reductions. Health benefit mandates increase costs for many insured Coloradans and it’s critical that we increase awareness of their impacts, so that an accurate cost benefit analysis can occur.

While the Chamber applauds efforts to reduce the cost of health care and increase transparency, we do not support artificial price-setting for any industry. We continue to actively lead efforts to decrease the high cost of health care and encourage all stakeholders to collaborate toward solutions that work for consumers and employers.