Today is Thursday, May 17, 2012

Legislation

Colorado supremes rule courts may be able to legislate state’s education funding

I smell a constitutional amendment referendum coming out of the General Assembly, which won’t be too happy about having the state’s courts decide what is “appropriate funding” for education. (Click on head for more.)

Will the Post help Bill Ritter reply to Scott McInnis?

Now that the Denver Post has helped Governor Bill Ritter reply to Josh Penry’s charge that he’s added more than 4,000 jobs to the state’s payroll since taking office, will its intrepid investigative political reporters dig into Ritter’s three bad bets that Scott McInnis is telling supporters about?

The three bad bets made and being made by Ritter, according to McInnis:

Vehicle-registration fee hikes must be cut now, McInnis says

Gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis told me in an interview this morning that Colorado’s General Assembly should immediately cut the vehicle registration fees increases that it imposed on owners earlier this year.

The General Assembly will go back into session in January.

His opponent in the race to be the GOP’s nominee in next year’s gubernatorial election, Josh Penry, the senate minority leader in the state, has promised to

Penry promies to repeal Colorado vehicle registration fee hike

Josh Penry, the Colorado Senate minority leader and a GOP candidate for governor, promised to repeal the very controversial state vehicle registration fee hike.

This probably will come up at tomorrow’s candidates forum in Westminister.

Link:

Gubernatorial candidate Penry pledges to repeal Colorado vehicle-registration fee hike
By Jessica Fender. Denver Post.

New vehicle registration fees will be rescinded before 2010 elections, McInnis predicts

Colorado’s General Assembly is likely to rescind the controversial new vehicle registration fees that it imposed on owners in this year’s session, Scott McInnis predicted today in Delta, CO, where he addressed about 75 voters.

The fees are angering voters across the state and legislators who voted for them are under fire.

I’ve been researching buying a motor home, but the new fees make that idea inoperable.

Link:

Colorado’s motor vehicle registration fees increase beginning July 1. Boulder County.

Colorado’s HB 1355 returns state to modified community rating on health insurance

Last month Gov. Bill Ritter signed HB1355, which returns modified community rating of small health insurance groups to Colorado. The bill reverses the Republican’s 2003 bill, HB 1164, which killed modified community rating at the behest of health insurers and in the face of opposition by small employers.

The GOP became the anti-small business party in Colorado after it passed the 2003 bill. And that among other things helped turn the state over to the Democrats. Now the Democrats are the pro-small business party when it comes to health insurance market regulation, at least as far as this issue is concerned.

The reason HB 1355 is pro small business is simple. I’m guessing more than a small majority of small businesses are owned by people over 40 and 50. They will benefit from the bill.

Having had people with all kinds of serious illnesses work for me as well as near seniors and seniors, I can tell you that your group can go from being healthy to unhealthy in a doctor’s appointment.

Sooner or later, all groups become unhealthy. And all groups will benefit from modified community rating. This bill makes the health insurers more honest and spreads risk among everyone.

Now we have a true health insurance market instead of one distorted by insurers’ cherry picking.

We all get sick, and we all need insurance when we face catastrophic illnesses and accidents.

Good for the Democrats and Governor Bill Ritter on this one.

Colorado House passes sick tax

Democrats in the Colorado House passed a tax on hospitals that will tax the sick.

The tax on hospitals will be passed on to the sick patients and to workers who buy health insurance either individually or through their employers. However the sick tax is collected, it will be passed on to consumers.

This will further reduce consumers’ disposable income, increase their debt and prolong the recession.

I discussed this bill in greater depth here.

“Bed tax boondoggle” at Rocky Mountain Right.

Colorado legislature wants to rob its taxpayers and hospital patients to cover the ‘uninsured’

Colorado’s legislature wants to increase the cost of hospitalization for patients and their families by imposing a $600 million tax on hospitals, which would pass the tax on to their customers one way or another.

The Colorado politicians reason that

Risk rating leaves people without health insurance; shows need for community rating

Thirty states offer poorly funded high-risk insurance pools for people with pre-existing medical conditions who can’t get insurance from companies that risk rate those they insure in an effort to avert expensive claims and keep health insurance premiums as low as possible. The Bush administration is backing inadequate grants to states to help fund their risk pools, and it offers $1,000 tax credits to help the uninsurables buy insurance that is unavailable at any price. It is hard to see how a tax credit will help a person who probably is unemployable as well as uninsurable because of pre-existing medical conditions such as diabetes, cancer and heart disease.

Mark Hillman bill rigs market for Anthem Blue Cross

The Mark Hilllman bill (or, the Anthem protection act of 2003), HB03-1164, is a form of socialism and anti-competition legislation because the legislature is being used by the insurance industry to rig the market in its favor.

 

Colorado fight over small business health insurance and community rating continues

Colorado’s legislators are doing a better job of sorting out a raft of poorly conceived health care reform measures than the editorial page of The Rocky Mountain News, which appears totally confused in this editorial, “Small-group insurance market still ill.”

Risk rating health insurance premiums increases costs

When health insurers set premium rates for individuals and small employers by taking the health status of the insured people into account, they frequently price high-risk individuals and small employers out of the market, according to an article in the May-June 1999 issue of Health Affairs.  Download the article here.

 

NFIB’s Jackson opposes HB03-1013 risk rating bill

Colorado National Federation of Independent Businesses opposes health insurance rate flexibility and rate banding