Connect for Health Colorado leaders thought they had done enough to address a of the state health insurance marketplace. A legislative committee on Monday said it hadn’t done enough.
The program affiliated with the Affordable Care Act will have to go back before the Legislative Audit Committee within three months to show it has firmed up its documentation in contracts and expenses.
“We have the same goal in mind,” Kevin Patterson, the interim CEO for state health insurance exchange, told the committee. “I have no problem coming back in three months and being responsive to this body.”
Patterson characterized the policies and procedures as evolutionary as the two-year-old marketplace grows from a startup to a more mature enterprise with a base of institutional knowledge and procedures to govern contracts and payouts.
The audit committee also had expected the program to recoup $412,137 in misapplied payments and grants.
Patterson said part of that money was federal dollars used for unallowed payments. The marketplace replaced the federal money with state funds from the program’s budget. Costs also will be recovered from future payments to vendors, he said.
In other cases, the cost of administering recovery would be more than what could be recouped, said Alan Schmitz, the lawyer who oversees contracts for the insurance program.
In May, a different legislative committee tasked with overseeing the exchange overseeing the program. Members of the Legislative Health Benefit Exchange Implementation Review Committee also questioned the exchange board’s makeup, potential conflicts of interest and the high pay for the exchange’s executive staff.
During a legislative hearing in April, insurance agents, brokers and consumers characterized the public-private program a success overall, but said to keep up.
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174, jbunch@denverpost.com or twitter.com/joeybunch
