{"id":1317036,"date":"2019-12-01T18:01:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-02T01:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=991376"},"modified":"2019-12-01T18:01:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-02T01:01:00","slug":"garfield-county-exploring-health-insurance-cooperative-in-hopes-of-lower-coverage-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/garfield-county-exploring-health-insurance-cooperative-in-hopes-of-lower-coverage-costs\/","title":{"rendered":"Garfield County exploring health insurance cooperative in hopes of lower coverage costs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Peak Health Alliance CEO Tamara Pogue-Drangstveit speaks at the Keystone Lodge in Keystone, Colo. on Sept. 9, 2019, during an event officially launching Peak Health.<\/strong>
Liz Copan\/Summit Daily file photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

A nonprofit health insurance cooperative that has served to lower health insurance costs in Summit and several rural western Colorado counties could do the same in Garfield County.<\/p>\n

Garfield County commissioners have allocated $25,000 to work with Peak Health Alliance in the coming months to explore the potential for the county to join the expanding cooperative.<\/p>\n

Begun in Summit County, the first-of-its-kind consumer cooperative works with insurers and health-care providers to negotiate individual, family and small group pricing for health insurance coverage.<\/p>\n

In combination with Colorado\u2019s reinsurance legislation that went into effect for the current Connect for Health open enrollment period, Summit County expects to see an overall 41.5% reduction in costs for health insurance purchased through the state marketplace, according to Peak Health\u2019s projections earlier this fall.<\/p>\n

The cooperative has grown to include<\/a> affiliates in six other counties for 2020 \u2014 Archuleta, Dolores, Grand, LaPlata, Montezuma and San Juan. <\/p>\n

The soonest Garfield County could join would be 2021, but a lot of information must be compiled by April of next year in order to proceed, County Commissioner Tom Jankovsky said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot of work to get this done, but we\u2019ll come up with some numbers and take a look to see if it makes sense to move forward,\u201d Jankovsky said.<\/p>\n

If the county can enlist between 2,000 and 6,000 individuals to join the cooperative, it could make sense, he said. Especially for small businesses, it could be a pathway to more affordable health insurance for their employees, he added.<\/p>\n

A committee is being formed to pull together raw county-level data, including the number of claims filed by county residents and cost of care provided both within and outside the county.<\/p>\n

Armed with that information, the county would negotiate pricing with providers and insurance carriers and issue a request for proposals from insurance companies to represent the county, Jankovsky explained.<\/p>\n

Even another 10\u201315% rate reduction for the county could make a big difference, especially for small employers (50 workers or less) that make up the bulk of Garfield County businesses, he said.<\/p>\n

Thanks to the reinsurance program<\/a>, Garfield County has already seen, on average, a 28.6% reduction in the cost of 2020 health insurance purchased through the marketplace compared to this year\u2019s rates, according to Colorado Division of Insurance data.<\/p>\n

Still, at more than $700 per month for an individual to buy a basic bronze-level insurance plan, without financial assistance based on income, that continues to be a deterrent, Jankovsky noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf somebody\u2019s making $17 to $20 an hour, that\u2019s still a lot of money,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, if you\u2019re healthy, you don\u2019t buy insurance, which creates a conundrum.\u201d<\/p>\n

About 20% of Garfield County residents are not insured, according to Division of Insurance statistics. And, Mountain Family Health Centers, which has clinics in Garfield, Eagle and Pitkin counties, reports that about 40% of the patients coming through their doors are not insured.<\/p>\n

The mountain resort region of Colorado and rural western Colorado counties continue to see health insurance rates anywhere from 18-30% higher than the Denver area, depending on the type of plan.<\/p>\n

While rates have gone down statewide via the reinsurance program, that disparity is something Western Slope interests are working to address, said Steve Reynolds, co-chairman of the health policy committee for Club 20, a Western Slope business and government advocacy group.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing to remember is that the majority of people who get their insurance through the exchange are getting a tax credit,\u201d he said. \u201cAs the premiums go down, that tax credit also goes down, so the actual out of pocket might not change that much.\u201d<\/p>\n

The vast majority of insured Coloradans get coverage through their employers, or they\u2019re on Medicare or Medicaid depending on their age and income.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Legislature this coming session is also expected to take up consideration of a public option bill that could further lower insurance costs by creating a publicly funded insurance option.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that has apparent support, and it will be interesting to watch that through the next legislative session,\u201d Reynolds said. \u201cThe main message I see coming out of the off session work is that people are continuing to become more and more educated about health care and why it\u2019s so expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

That education is important to finding solutions such as reinsurance and the potential for local cooperatives, he said.<\/p>\n

jstroud@postindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peak Health Alliance CEO Tamara Pogue-Drangstveit speaks at the Keystone Lodge in Keystone, Colo. on Sept. 9, 2019, during an event officially launching Peak Health.Liz Copan\/Summit Daily file photo A nonprofit health insurance cooperative that has served to lower health insurance costs in Summit and several rural western Colorado counties could do the same in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1317036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-06 11:05:07","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1317036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317036\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1317036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1317036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1317036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}