The health care initiative unveiled by Gov. Bill Ritter on Wednesday is a solid and affordable start toward improving coverage for needy Colorado children while coaxing better results from the $30 billion a year this state’s citizens already spend on health care.
Overall, Ritter is asking the legislature to increase spending by $25 million — a sum that when married to federal matching funds should trigger a $65 million increase in coverage for uninsured Coloradans, mostly children.
The centerpiece of Ritter’s plan is a bill by Sen. Bob Hagedorn, D-Aurora, and Rep. Anne McGihon, D-Denver, that will expand Child Health Plan Plus and Medicaid coverage to 55,000 additional children over three years. Part of the initiative seeks to raise the ceiling for the CHP Plus program to 225 percent of the federal poverty level, or $48,000 per year for a family of four. The current limit is 200 percent, but it is scheduled to rise to 205 percent March 1.
Additionally, Ritter is launching a major effort to identify and sign up more of the estimated 70,000 children in Colorado already eligible for CHP Plus who have not yet enrolled.
We particularly welcome plans outlined by Joan Henneberry, executive director of the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, to partner with private employers to help insure children and families. There have been stories recently of workers who earn less than the ceiling for Medicaid or CHP Plus turning down the insurance offered by their employers — then seeking help for themselves or their families through the taxpayer-funded programs. Under Ritter’s plan, the state may help subsidize premiums for some low-income workers, thus leveraging the public funding with the benefits offered by private employers.
That’s not just a good idea, it’s a healthy attitude — one that we want to see more of in the health care debate. Happily, that same cooperative approach is also reflected in another Ritter initiative dubbed the Center for Improving Value in Health Care. It will bring business leaders, health care providers, consumers, insurance companies and government officials together to reduce waste and improve efficiency in our existing systems. We hope it works.
Other initiatives are designed to trim costs, improve health care, and give consumers and employers more information so they can shop wisely for health insurance.
Ritter’s plan stops far short of a universal insurance plan — as it should, for now. But by streamlining and coordinating existing public and private programs in Colorado, this health care initiative will help pave the way for an effective and affordable universal plan in the future — when and if the federal government finally steps up to play its role in what ultimately must be a coordinated federal/state/private partnership to finally bring universal health care to America.
