Source: Colorado Politics
The 75th General Assembly will begin Jan. 8 with a load of bills. Don’t be surprised if some bills that failed in the 2024 General Assembly get a resurrection in 2025.
As background, killed bills usually fail in first committee hearings with a postponed indefinitely status. In 2024, 75 bills were killed after they progressed to the next stages. Most died in House or Senate Appropriations because there wasn’t enough money to cover their costs. Expect more of this in 2025 as the budget has a gaping hole.
Here’s an example of the death throes of a bill in 2024. HB24-1022 “Publish Bill Drafts Online before Session,” introduced in January at the beginning of the session, had a $61,000 tab to develop web-based code to allow bill drafts to show before their official introduction. Once the initial coding was developed, the bill would cost about $9,200 per year. That’s a small amount to achieve public transparency. The bill passed the House 51-to-12. The bill passed its Senate first committee hearing 9-to-3 and was referred to Senate Appropriations on May 4 at the very end of the session. It never received that hearing. That decision is on Democratic Senate leadership.
This bill may have been jammed because senators as a whole don’t want to publish their bill drafts. Public scrutiny can be harsh. From the public’s point of view, a $61,000 investment in website code to see bill drafts ahead of formal introduction makes sense. Such posting gives citizens an opportunity to weigh in as bills are crafted. No such luck unless bipartisan sponsors Reps. Stephanie Luck-R and Eliza Hamrick-D and Sen. Kevin Van Winkle-R feel confident to offer the bill again. Let’s encourage that.
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Colorado’s nurses fought hard for HB24-1066, “Prevent Workplace Violence in Health-Care Settings.” Needless to say, with COVID and other strains on the state’s health care system, violence against medical workers in hospitals, clinics, long-term care homes and mental health care facilities is prevalent and extremely distressing. This bill, introduced in January 2024 in the House, finally died at the end of 2024’s session in House Appropriations under the weight of its $1 million-plus appropriation per year. With bills such as this one, supported by an important professional association, the legislature’s tendency is to gaslight the legislation until it dies due to end-of-session workload. To get this bill through, medical workers will need a funding stream that doesn’t include state money.
HB24-1075, Analysis of a Universal Health Care System, suffered this gaslight effect two years in a row. In 2024 the bill was introduced early in January because sponsors and supporters knew it would have a fiscal note. The skuttlebutt at the time said a bill with a fiscal note under $250,000 had a better chance of passing. Sponsors and supporters trimmed the bill’s fiscal note to $240,000. The bill passed the House 41-to-19. The bill passed the Senate Health and Human Services Committee 5-to-3. The bill even passed House and Senate Appropriations. But Senate leadership and others in the highest echelons of state government decided the bill had to die over the last two days of the 2024 session. It never received its second reading in the Senate.
The purpose of “Analysis of Universal Health Care System,” is to determine how a single-payer health delivery system operated by a semi-governmental agency with premiums paid to this single agency rather than to dozens of health insurance companies may work. The goal of a universal single-payer systems is to lower health insurance costs and streamline care delivery. In a single payer system, patients continue to go to the doctors and hospitals of their choice. They pay their premiums to a single-payer administrator.
Small businesses would particularly benefit from a single-payer structure. Businesses wouldn’t have to deal with health insurance as part of their overhead. With the recent catastrophe related to the murder of United Health Care Chief Executive Brian Thompson, the 2025 legislature may decide to give this bill another look. The public outcry at the cost of health insurance and its algorithmic care decisions show current health insurance financing is putting overwhelming pressure on purchasers and, even worse, on sick people.
Sometimes a bill is killed in its first committee hearing because it takes on too much. This was the case of HB24-1363 Charter School Accountability. This bill proposed to clarify charter school budgets and money sources, remove automatic waivers to laws that govern public schools, and offered an appeals process for citizens who object to a school’s chartering contract. During the only committee hearing on this bill, an observer would believe the world had come to an end. The sturm und drang from parents and children primed by charter professionals was deeply angsty. Apparently the House Education Committee agreed that transparency related to spending public tax dollars on the education of Colorado’s children by charter schools is not good for the charter school industry. The bill was defeated.
Some brave legislators may take on charter schools again in 2025. Sometimes it’s a good idea to poke the bear.
