{"id":1319758,"date":"2020-05-04T13:35:04","date_gmt":"2020-05-04T19:35:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vaildaily.com\/?p=477614"},"modified":"2020-05-04T18:55:33","modified_gmt":"2020-05-05T00:55:33","slug":"colorado-democrats-abandon-2020-effort-to-pass-public-health-insurance-option","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/colorado-democrats-abandon-2020-effort-to-pass-public-health-insurance-option\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado Democrats abandon 2020 effort to pass public health insurance option"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Democrats in the Colorado legislature on Monday said they are setting aside their contentious effort this year to pass a bill&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/coloradosun.com\/2020\/03\/05\/public-option-rural-hospitals-price-formula\/\">creating a public health insurance option<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The prime backers of the legislation,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/leg.colorado.gov\/bills\/hb20-1349\">House Bill 1349<\/a>, say the coronavirus crisis has made it impossible to ensure that all of the relevant stakeholders \u2014 hospitals, doctors and insurance companies \u2014 can be involved in the lawmaking process.<\/p>\n<p>But the Democrats pushing for the measure, which is a priority of Gov. Jared Polis, say the pandemic has highlighted the need for the public option, which was planned to be a private insurance&nbsp;plan with hospital prices and other strict regulations set by the state.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile our state battles COVID-19, we note that this crisis is illuminating the vast gaps in our health care system,\u201d state Rep. Dylan Roberts, an Avon Democrat, said in a written statement. \u201cAs the economic devastation unfolds and more Coloradans lose their access to employer-based insurance, it\u2019s more clear than ever that our system is broken and that Coloradans deserve more choice and lower prices.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>State lawmakers are also&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/coloradosun.com\/2020\/04\/30\/colorado-2020-budget-cuts-coronavirus\/\">facing significant budget cuts<\/a>&nbsp;because of economic impacts of coronavirus that likely would have made passing the public option legislation nearly impossible. House Speaker KC Becker, a Boulder Democrat, alluded to that factor last week.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPublic option may not be realistic right now,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>But up until last week Roberts and state Sen. Kerry Donovan, a Vail Democrat and another prime sponsor of the effort, were holding out hope.<\/p>\n<p><em>Read more via The Colorado Sun. <\/em><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vaildaily.com\/news\/colorado-democrats-abandon-2020-effort-to-pass-public-health-insurance-option\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Vail Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Democrats in the Colorado legislature on Monday said they are setting aside their contentious effort this year to pass a bill&nbsp;creating a public health insurance option. The prime backers of the legislation,&nbsp;House Bill 1349, say the coronavirus crisis has made it impossible to ensure that all of the relevant stakeholders \u2014 hospitals, doctors and insurance [&hellip;]<\/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":{"0":"post-1319758","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-02 20:29:36","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\/1319758","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=1319758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1319765,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319758\/revisions\/1319765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1319758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1319758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1319758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}