By Julia C. Martinez, The Denver Post Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Nov. 1--The major candidates for governor have expressed major differences on how to resolve what they agree is a health insurance crisis in Colorado.
The cost of health insurance has risen by double digits every year for the last few years. The result is that thousands of Coloradans are now uninsured. Last year, more than 4,600 companies employing 82,000 workers dropped insurance coverage, according to the Colorado Division of Insurance, leaving employees to either pay their own health costs or go without.
Republican Gov. Bill Owens supports a plan that would allow employers to access more affordable coverage free of state requirements that they must provide expensive care such as mammograms and prostate screenings.
Democrat Rollie Heath supports an increase in the cigarette tax to help small businesses cover employee health insurance costs and to expand coverage for poor children.
In describing his health insurance proposal, Owens talks about a Cadillac plan versus a Chevrolet version, which he says will help make health insurance more accessible and affordable. Under the flashier Cadillac plan, employers able to afford it would continue to offer full coverage that includes mammograms, prostate screenings, 48-hour hospital stays for newborns, partial mental health treatment and other so-called preventive care. Employers and people who can't afford it would be allowed to access a Chevy plan without those 'extras.'
Heath opposes the Chevrolet proposal for fear it will leave too many people without critical care. So do other Democrats, such as Sen.
Bob Hagedorn, vice chair of the Senate Health Committee.
'The Chevy plan instead of the Cadillac plan is not in the best interest of working families,' said Hagedorn, of Aurora. 'But it is in the best interests of insurance companies and other businesses.
Just don't say it's good for working families.'
Heath proposes instead to raise the cigarette excise tax from the current 20 cents to $1.20 a pack to help small businesses pay for health coverage for up to 200,000 employees a year. The plan would also help senior citizens pay for prescription drugs and fund prenatal care for more poor women and health care for their babies.
The plan would raise $250 million a year over 10 years until Colorado can come up with another solution, Heath said.
Owens is adamantly opposed to increasing taxes to cure the health insurance dilemma. 'You're starting at a half-billion a year in taxes before you're even elected,' Owens told Heath this week, referring to the costs of his cigarette and Internet sales tax proposals combined. Heath's Internet sales-tax plan would raise $200 million a year for business incentives.
Heath argues that Colorado has the second-lowest-priced cigarettes in the United States after North Carolina, averaging $3.18 a pack compared with roughly $7 a pack in New York. He said raising the price might prompt some smokers to quit. 'I feel good about it. I'm proud about it,' Heath said of his plan. New York and several other states have raised their cigarette taxes to pay for state health care programs.
Both candidates said this week that they oppose a universal health care ballot measure in Oregon that would effectively eliminate private insurance in that state but guarantee full health care coverage for all Oregonians paid for with state income and payroll taxes. Oregon voters will decide the issue at the ballot box next week.
'Oregon's solution is too expensive,' Heath said. 'That's why I proposed a (higher) cigarette tax to help with a tough problem.'
Heath also proposes changing eligibility requirements for the government-funded Child Health Plan Plus, CHP+, so more children of needy families can enroll.
Owens said he has reduced premiums in the CHP+ program, eliminated annual fees for many families and added a dental benefit to the CHP+, helping to boost enrollment 66 percent. Two years ago, after a state audit criticized Colorado's version of the program, Owens also forgave $650,000 in debt owed by families behind in their premiums to the CHP+ program.
Of big concern to Heath is that more and more doctors are refusing to accept Medicaid patients and other low-income patients. Heath has proposed holding meetings with physicians as well as insurance and pharmaceutical companies to discuss the problems. He also proposes to save money on drug costs by forming a state purchasing pool and buying prescription drugs at bulk rates.
Heath also supports restoring funding to Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, whose funding was halted last year after Owens' health care director and current lieutenant governor running mate, Jane Norton, determined there was evidence that the nonprofit family planning organization was subsidizing rent for an affiliated agency that performs abortions.
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(c) 2002, The Denver Post. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
