HB-1001<\/a>\u00a0, the first bill introduced in the House this session \u2014 would require hospitals to provide more detailed financial reports to the state, so that it can better analyze hospital charges and expenses.<\/p>\nAnd that makes the state\u2019s new report an opening salvo in the fight.<\/p>\n
On Jan. 23, Polis and a slew of Democratic lawmakers and administration officials announced the official creation of his new Office of Saving People Money on Health Care. Polis said the office, to be led by Lt. Gov. Dianne Primavera, will coordinate efforts across the administration to reduce the cost of health care, especially in rural areas. He said he will ask the legislature to approve $247,000 to get the office off the ground.<\/p>\n
In ticking through ideas to lower health care costs, Polis mentioned several proposals pending in the legislature \u2014 such as HB-1001 or a bill that passed its first committee vote Jan. 23 that would study the idea of creating a state-run insurance program that people could buy into.<\/p>\n
But he also specifically mentioned the new report, saying that it \u201cshows there\u2019s a lot of work we need to do on bringing down hospital costs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bimestefer\u2019s department created the report for the Colorado Healthcare Authority & Sustainability Enterprise board, which helps implement a fee that is supposed to reduce the need for hospitals to charge privately insured patients more to compensate for underpayments from Medicaid and Medicare. (The report is still technically in draft form and won\u2019t be official until approved by the board at its meeting next month.)<\/p>\n
But, despite the fee and other reforms, the cost shift has grown over the past nine years, according to the state report. In 2009, Medicare and Medicaid in Colorado paid 78 cents and 54 cents, respectively, for every $1 worth of care their patients received. Privately insured patients paid $1.55 for every $1 worth of care.<\/p>\n
In 2017, Medicare and Medicaid had equalized, each paying 69 cents for every $1 in care in Colorado. But privately insured patients were now paying $1.66 for every $1 worth of care, according to the report.<\/p>\n
During that nine-year span, hospitals also saw the percent of uninsured patients they treated plunge as a result of the federal Affordable Care Act and the expansion in Colorado of Medicaid eligibility, meaning they were treating fewer patients without receiving any payment at all.<\/p>\n
Payments to hospitals grew from $9.5 billion to $15.7 billion. Costs grew, too, increasing 58.7 percent while hospital discharges, a measure of how many people are using the hospital, grew only 14.2 percent. And hospital margins \u2014 the money left over after payments are taken in and expenses are paid \u2014 increased from $417 million to $1.2 billion.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne conclusion could be that the benefits of Medicaid expansions and the ACA (have) not been passed onto commercial insurance, employers or commercial consumers,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n
John Bartholomew, the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing\u2019s chief financial officer, put it more directly: \u201cIf they had managed their costs, the cost shift could have been flat.\u201d<\/p>\n
In one scenario modeled in the report, if hospitals had held their cost increases to inflation levels while also keeping their margins at 2009 levels, the cost shift to privately insured patients would have decreased and consumers in Colorado would have saved $11.5 billion.<\/p>\n
But hospitals say this kind of math oversimplifies their situation.<\/p>\n
Lonborg, the hospital association spokeswoman, said Colorado\u2019s aging population plays a role in hospital cost increases. At the Colorado Health Institute conference, Richard Hammett, the CEO of Swedish Hospital, said more patients with minor medical issues are being treated in non-hospital settings, meaning the population of patients using hospitals now is relatively sicker and more expensive than it once was.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo intensity drives cost and it drives the level of resources we provide,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
And Jamie Smith, the president of Saint Joseph Hospital, said an influx of patients from neighboring states seeking care in Colorado has helped drive the Front Range\u2019s hospital building boom \u2014 often cited as one cause for spiraling costs being pushed onto patients.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are net importing patients . from communities outside our own,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I think that ought to be considered in some of this building.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bimestefer dismissed the idea that hospitals are building only to meet consumer need, saying that hospitals are largely building in high-income areas and that marketing helps make sure new beds get filled.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you have excess capacity, that creates demand,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
But she said she hopes the report doesn\u2019t lead to back-and-forth arguments.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of us,\u201d she said, \u201chave to work to change the hand of cards we\u2019ve been dealt.\u201d<\/p>\n
via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER (AP) \u2014 Colorado hospitals could have passed on savings to consumers of as much as $11.5 billion over a nine-year period if they had better contained costs and lowered their margins, according to a new state report. The\u00a0report\u00a0seems to indicate the administration of Gov. Jared Polis will take an aggressive line against hospitals 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":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2439373","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-13 03:41:17","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":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2439373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2439373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2439373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2439373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}