CiviCO Session – Health Care in Colorado

–Heidi Hostetter, My most recent session with the CiviCO Governor’s Fellowship covered health care in Colorado. Honestly, it was a little discouraging to find out that Colorado has the 2nd highest hospital costs in the country! I was also struck by the discrepancies in what the Colorado Hospital Association’s representative said were profits seen by hospitals and what the Lieutenant Governor reported. The CHA rep reported that most Colorado hospitals lost money, while the state reported that hospitals made over $2 Billion in profit last year. I came away from this session with lots of questions. Things like how do we address profit vs. non-profit medical providers? Will HB 1160 create transparency in drug pricing? Is a single-payer model even feasible when Medicare and Medicaid only pay out $.79 on the dollar? I have some ideas on how we might address affordable health care, and I’d be curious to know what you think should be done. Feel free to email me to let me know how you are affected by health care costs or how your company is dealing with navigating insurance requirements.