Colorado to Advance Statewide Insurance

DENVER (By Pat Ferrier, Coloradoan.com) December 8, 2008 — Democratic Rep. John Kefalas will introduce legislation in January to provide health-care insurance coverage for all Colorado residents.

Kefalas, attending the Colorado Health Care Summit 2008 in Denver Friday, said health-care reform remains his top priority and is a 100-day priority for President-elect Barack Obama.

Kefalas, who is still working on his draft legislation to be ready when the Legislature comes back into session in January, said it also may include a single-payer system.

Colorado's 2008 Blue Ribbon Commission charged with proposing health-care reform in the state said a single-payer system would reduce Colorado's $30 billion health care costs by $1.5 billion.

Implementing a single-payer system will be difficult for individual states to do on their own, said Bill Lindsay, chair of the Blue Ribbon Commission, who spoke at the summit organized by Democratic U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar.

"But we need to have the discussion," Lindsay said.

More than 250,000 Colorado residents lack health insurance, but reform has been a sticky issue for most legislatures.

Kefalas said the bill's chances are "much higher than they've ever been" to get comprehensive health-care reform passed.

"There's a serious commitment on the part of the new administration," said Kefalas, who was re-elected to his second term in November.

Reform will take courage and leadership on the state and national level, said Denise de Percin, executive director of the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative.

"We need one proposal that people can get behind. It doesn't need to be perfect, but it does need to be substantial."

Dr. John Bender of Fort Collins, president of the Colorado Academy of Family Physicians, said the region faces a shortage of primary care doctors as fewer medical students go into the less lucrative practice of primary care, and older doctors leave their practices behind.

Paying primary care doctors even $100,000 more a year — they now average about $150,000 a year — would save $750,000 in lower emergency room and intensive care unit costs by creating more family doctors to see patients. They also come out of medical school with an average of $150,000 to $200,000 in debt.

"We have underpaid primary care doctors for 10 years. ... But family physicians can't do it for next to nothing," Bender said.

"The good news," he said, "is that no bailout is required. We don't need more money, we just need to spend it more wisely."

Keynote speaker and Democratic U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle, Obama's choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, will be chiefly responsible for drafting comprehensive reform.

He said there's nothing ailing in the U.S. health-care system that lower costs, increased quality and improved access can't cure.

Daschle spoke to a near-capacity crowd in the Seawall Ballroom at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, the same room where Daschle spoke on the same topic three months ago during the Democratic National Convention.

Health care faces increasing pressure as the number of uninsured Americans rises along with the unemployment rate, and a looming shortage of primary care doctors threatens to decrease access.

Currently, 47 million Americans lack health insurance and another 2.5 million will be added to the rolls if unemployment rises to 7.5 percent, Daschle said.

On Thursday, November unemployment numbers rose to 6.7 percent, the highest level in 15 years, as layoffs in banking, insurance, housing and manufacturing continue to dominate the headlines.

Health care also costs every man, woman and child in the U.S. $7,500 a year in taxes, premiums and out-of-pocket expenses, Daschle said. That number will double by 2015 if the system is not reformed.

"The status quo will be the most costly option of all," he said.

The system suffers from inefficiencies, particularly in administrative efforts still mired in mountains of paperwork.

"We have a 21st century operating room with all the sophisticated care one can imagine, with a 19th century administrative," said Daschle, who was elected Senate president in 1986.

"We are driving a huge part of the economy by paper, and that is costing the country a bundle," said Daschle, who estimated $200 billion of the $2 trillion spent on health care could be unnecessary.

He challenged schools, business and industry to focus on wellness and urged schools to serve nutritious meals and to teach nutrition and provide physical education to help combat childhood obesity that can lead to increase rates of diabetes.

Salazar, who helped sponsor Friday's event, said "failure is not an option. We will reform the health-care system, and the quarterback is someone better than John Elway on the football field — Tom Daschle."