DENVER – March 18, 2021 – The Polis administration today introduced its newest proposal to take away Coloradans’ control over their healthcare. The Colorado Option is not feasible and is destined to move Colorado towards one government option for your healthcare where people will have to pay more, to wait longer, for worse care.
In response to the bill’s introduction, Executive Director Amanda Massey stated:
“Health plans have worked hard to reduce premiums 28% in the last two years and increase competition across Colorado counties. Instead of continuing to partner with health plans to build upon this unprecedented progress, this proposal ignores these recent successes achieved by the market in favor of arbitrary, moving targets that will ensure industry failure. Make no mistake, the path to the government-run single payer health care system rejected by 80% of Colorado voters just a few years ago is paved with the public option program that this public option bill proposes.
It’s simple economics. Countless Coloradans will risk losing the health plan they receive today through their employer or the individual market if the government undercuts those markets with a highly subsidized government health plan that plays by different rules and leverages artificially low prices.
If the Polis administration wanted to save people money on healthcare, they would work with the industry and commit to policies that allow health plans to be more effective. Instead, the government is exacting new coverage mandates, fees on insurers, and other regulatory burdens that drive additional cost. The government cannot tell the industry to do its job while simultaneously working to make that job impossible.”
As proposed, the government health insurance option would give unprecedented authority over the healthcare of Coloradans to an unelected bureaucrat without accountability for how significant tax dollars would be spent. The proposal as introduced would risk the gains achieved in recent years to stabilize health insurance markets and leave Coloradans with fewer options for health insurance and health providers.