Colorado governor candidates see dangers in each other’s health proposals
Both candidates say it's a top priority to expand Coloradans' access to health care and control costs, but Republican Stapleton and his supporters warn that Democrat Polis' plans will impoverish the state and its residents, while the Polis camp argues Coloradans will lose coverage and financial protections under Stapleton's proposals.
Nine years after a
While the two candidates differ sharply on issues related to the ACA, from Colorado's individual insurance exchange to expanded Medicaid coverage, both are also banking on getting waivers from the federal government in order to implement some of their more ambitious plans.
According to a public opinion survey conducted earlier this year by the
Asked before the June primary to name the issues that helped determine which gubernatorial candidate to support, unaffiliated voters said education was most important, followed by health care.
Polling, however, also shows Republican voters aren't nearly as concerned about health care as
Just after Polis picked his running mate, former state Rep.
Stapleton's running mate state Rep.
"Health care is a human right," Polis said in a 15-second ad that aired during the Democratic primary. "I supported 'Medicare for All' for more than a decade, because it will help Coloradans pay less for health care, and that's who we should be fighting for."
Polis described how he would implement his policies as governor in a series of opinion pieces published earlier this year in the
"With the absence of leadership coming from
Polis has outlined an array of approaches, including a proposal to band together with other western states to establish a "universal, single-payer option," as well as plans to attack the high cost of health care in rural Colorado, soaring prescription prices and the opioid epidemic.
Stapleton, a two-term state treasurer, wants you to know one thing, for sure, about his health care plan: "My plan won't bankrupt the state," he said in a small meeting room in
While Stapleton has been short on specifics when it comes to his own prescriptions for health care -- a page devoted to health care issues appeared on his campaign website only in the last week -- his campaign and his supporters have pounded a steady drumbeat about Polis' plan, calling it radical and pointing to a recent national study that found the federal government could spend
"Tell
"Walker is committed to instituting reforms that will actually fix our health care system and bring about real relief to Coloradans that can't afford the out-of-control costs of Obamacare," Stapleton campaign spokesman
Stapleton describes Polis' plan as potentially more expensive to taxpayers than the projected
"He's promising universal coverage to people," Stapleton told Colorado Politics. "It's responsible, if you're making that promise, to explain to people how you plan to pay for it."
It's important to note there's a distinction between universal coverage -- something nearly every industrialized country except
"If we don't set a goal, it's impossible to get to where we want to go," Polis is known for saying -- and his campaign maintains that his push for universal coverage could develop in different ways but will have to lower costs in order to move ahead.
Here's how Polis says his proposed multi-state health consortium could work: Once in office, Polis plans to meet with governors from western states -- possibly including
The states might also come up with other programs like reinsurance for rural areas, expanded mobile health clinics, fixed-price reimbursement to Medicaid providers and common consumer rules and transparency requirements for prescription drugs.
After what could be a couple years to put together the plan -- particularly because the states don't have the same legislative calendar, and some might require different steps to approve the proposition, including taking the question before voters -- the states would submit waiver applications under Obamacare to the federal government, taking advantage of flexibility built into the law.
Although it could take years to put in place, the plan could result in a regional single-payer system, or it could turn into the kind of robust public option that Polis and other
"We can turn this idea into reality by working in a bipartisan way on a shared set of strong legal standards for implementing the system," Polis wrote. "By removing the moral hazards and perverse incentives to deny coverage that exists in private insurance, we can put people before politics and be a regional model for the rest of the nation. Insurance creates the most value with the largest possible risk pool, so why shouldn't all of us be in one risk pool to prevent gaming the system?"
In the meantime, Polis is contemplating a legislative agenda that includes encouraging more physical activity among schoolchildren, allowing municipalities to raise their own tobacco taxes, implementing paid family and medical leave policies and permanently funding the Long-Acting Reversible Contraception program, which significantly reduced teen pregnancy and abortion rates as a pilot program.
Along with encouraging broadband development in order to make some medical technologies more available throughout the state, Polis is proposing a range of solutions to bring more affordable health care to rural and mountain areas, where it's as expensive and scarce as anywhere in the country.
"I've been calling on Colorado for years to redefine its geographic rating system to reduce the expenses facing mountain area families, and I'm prepared to solve this issue as governor," he said.
Stapleton's health care plan is built from a blueprint of ifs:
* If the legislature would support major reforms, meaning if both chambers have a Republican majority.
* If Republicans in
* If the Colorado's health exchange proves otherwise unworkable.
* If federal block grants, vouchers and waivers allow the governor to unilaterally dictate care for the medically needy.
* If he can find private partners to fill the gaps at a better price than the way care is delivered now.
* If, politically, he can get away with turning away Medicaid recipients at emergency rooms, instead directing them to community clinics that could provide the service more cheaply.
Stapleton calls his plan a "managed model" for Medicaid, which provides care for more than 1.3 million Coloradans.
"It means actively managing what is going on with the expansion of Medicaid. so we can deliver on the promises we've made, so we don't wind up with 64 counties with one choice of health care (insurance) provider seeing double-digit increases, and people are paying more for their insurance than they are their mortgages," he said.
Although he said in earlier interviews that he wants to reduce the number of Coloradans on Medicaid, Stapleton told Colorado Politics last week that he isn't looking to kick off people who got Medicaid coverage during the Obamacare expansion -- about 400,000 people.
A July report on the expansion showed
Medicaid is a
Stapleton said if he's governor, the state's exchange for individual health insurance, Connect for Health Colorado, will get a close re-examination in the name of services, cost and efficiency.
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