Lawmakers’ tinkering threatens our health care
“If it doesn’t fit, force it; if it breaks, break it some more” was my teenage rule of thumb. With age came patience, humility, and an appreciation for adages of old: “measure twice, cut once,” “safety first,” “read the directions,” and “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The last one is especially applicable to plumbing and legislation. Doit-yourself dads and legislators would be wise to heed it before tinkering with the pipes or people’s lives and livelihoods. This means you Colorado General Assembly.
Once again, state legislators are threatening to foist a “public option” health insurance scheme on Colorado that will drive up the cost of health insurance plans and reduce access to critical health care services. A similar bill was tabled last year because of the pandemic. This year, legislators are working on a bill that would set goals for insurance companies lower premiums over two years. If they fail to meet the mandated targets, the legislature will impose a “Colorado Health Insurance Option” on the state.
Here’s what will happen should the bill pass. Right now Colorado enjoys “some of the lowest average insurance premiums on the individual market in the country” according to a report by the nonpartisan Common Sense Institute. Our state also has “lower hospital reimbursement rates than most other states.” Thanks to the pandemic, Colorado hospitals have lost billions of dollars due to “higher pandemic-related expenses for personal protective equipment, medical supplies and additional critical care beds to treat the influx of COVID-19 patients; the suspension of non-emergency medical procedures; patient avoidance of hospital care; reduced travel and tourism into the state; and state budget cuts to hospitals due to the steep decline in the economy and associated tax revenues.”
Since there’s little fat in the system to cut, insurance companies will be unable to lower premiums to the satisfaction of regulators. The government will then impose a so-called “public option” plan, which will likely offer doctors and hospitals reimbursement below market rates to provider a lower premium to those insured. Coloradans will leave existing individual health care policies for the cheaper government plan. Since that plan will reimburse hospitals at a lower rate than the actual cost to provide care, other Coloradans will have to cover the gap.
Insurance companies will have to increase premiums for other plans or reduce reimbursement to hospitals, or both. Increased premiums will “impose additional costs on employers and workers, creating a drag on the economy that results in a net loss of 6,400 jobs and $619 million per year in personal income,” according to the Common Sense Institute, which is run by some of Colorado’s business leaders. Increased premiums will also likely accelerate movement away from traditional plans to the government-controlled plan. Traditional plans will disappear over time. If you like your insurance plan, don’t count on keeping it.
Coloradans will not only pay higher premiums, but they also will experience reduced health care access. A study by FTI Consulting that is included in the Common Sense Institute’s analysis found that 83% of hospitals will lose revenue if the legislature passes a public option bill. Rural hospitals, which operate on leaner margins, will be disproportionally impacted. According to the study, 23 rural hospitals could close. Even hospitals that remain open are likely to lay off staff and cut health services to patients.
With fewer health care providers, Coloradans can expect to wait longer for care. That’s how it works. The price any good or service is determined by supply and demand not wishful thinking by legislators. When government sets prices below what providers can deliver, shortages become inevitable. In government-run health care schemes you wait in line for care. The median wait time to see a specialist for treatment was in excess of 20 weeks from the time of referral in Canada’s government-run health care system. Waiting for treatment is also the hallmark of the British system. My friend’s mother waited a year for hip surgery. My friend wasn’t so lucky; waiting for cancer treatment cost him his life.
Colorado health care is not perfect — no human endeavor is —but it’s not a broken appliance to be fiddled with. Have the humility to leave it and us alone.