HEALTHCARE

Healthcare remains too expensive and the details of healthcare costs and billing can be too opaque for many people.  Medical debt is a leading cause of financial hardship and bankruptcy for families in Colorado. Healthcare and mental health should be more affordable and easier to access, and we must remedy disparities in access to and treatment within healthcare systems.

Below are bills I’ve sponsored and supported to make our healthcare system work better for Coloradans:

Protecting Coloradans from Medical Debt (SB23-093) - Too many Coloradans struggle to pay medical bills and are frustrated with the lack of transparency when paying for medical services. I sponsored this bill to strengthen our consumer protections related to medical debt and out-of-network billing. This bill requires a health-care facility to provide an estimate of the total cost of a self-pay service, requires a debt collection agency collecting on a medical debt to provide to the consumer an itemized statement to dispute the validity of the debt, and caps debt interest at 3% per year.  Status: signed into law.

I have also supported the following bills to make healthcare more available and affordable:

• Protect credit scores by disallowing medical debt from being reported to credit agencies where it can negatively impact credit scores (HB23-1186 – signed into law);

• Cap “epi-pen” costs at $60 for a 2-pack of these life-saving injectable emergency medicines (HB23-1002 – signed into law);

• Save Coloradans money on prescription drugs by empowering the Prescription Drug Affordability Board to establish “upper price limits” on more costly drugs (HB23-1225 – signed into law);

• Reduce surprise healthcare charges by prohibiting certain “facility fees” from being charged for outpatient healthcare services (HB23-1215 – signed into law);

• Train more healthcare workers to keep up with growing need in this field (SB22-226 – signed into law);

• Address severe lack of healthcare options in rural areas by recruiting more healthcare workers and increasing access to tele-medicine (SB22-172 – signed into law; SB22-200 – signed into law);

• Create the “Colorado Option” so that residents of our state will have more choice in the healthcare market and competition among options will lead to lower prices (HB21-1232 – signed into law);

• Establish the “Prescription Drug Affordability Review Board” to check price increases in the most expensive drugs (SB21-175 – signed into law);

• Cap insulin prices so this necessary drug for people with diabetes remains accessible (HB21-1307 – signed into law);

• Increase consumer protections in billing for lower-income patients by requiring hospitals to notify patients about existing financial assistance that may be available and by creating limitations on collections practices (HB21-1198 – signed into law);

• Continue the re-insurance program created in 2019 to lower premiums on the individual market (SB20-215 – signed into law);

• Allow seniors 65+ with disabilities to buy in to Medicaid at their option (SB20-033 – signed into law);

• Require insurance coverage of fertility treatments (HB20-1158 – signed into law);

• Create a reinsurance program that is already on track to lower premiums on the individual market by an average of 18% in 2020 (HB19-1168 – signed into law);

• Increase transparency of hospital costs (HB19-1001 – signed into law);

• Limit out of network or “surprise” billing by health care providers (HB19-1174 – signed into law);

• Create oversight for freestanding emergency rooms to control costs (HB19-1010 – signed into law);

• Limit out of pocket costs for insulin, a necessary medicine for more and more people (HB19-1216 – signed into law);

• Reduce maternal mortality rates, which have doubled in Colorado since 2008 (HB19-1122 – signed into law);

• Reduce the cost of healthcare through new approaches like a public option to increase competition in health care (HB19-1004 – signed into law) and;

• Promote health care cooperatives that can negotiate for lower prices (SB19-004 – signed into law).

To increase access to mental health services, I have supported legislation to:

• Expand access to school-based mental health screenings for students in grades 6-12 (HB23-1003 - signed into law);

• Dedicate $450M in federal COVID relief funds to comprehensively improving mental health care and substance use treatment (12 separate bills in the 2022 legislative session – signed into law);

• Invest over $100M to substance abuse treatment (SB21-137 – signed into law);

• Require insurance companies to cover an annual mental health exam (HB21-1068 – signed into law);

• Create a statewide suicide help hotline, 988 (SB21-154 – signed into law);

• Increase access to counseling services for youth 12 years and older (HB19-1120 – signed into law);

• Fund more counselors in high-need elementary schools (HB19-1017 – signed into law);

• Require insurance companies to cover prevention and treatment of mental health conditions as well as physical conditions (HB19-1269 – signed into law) and;

• Allocate $3M in school grant funding to increase access to behavioral health services for students (SB19-010 – signed into law).