CEO Blog: Innovation and Opportunity

To Our Valued Stakeholders,

I had the opportunity last week to participate in a conference with America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the national association of health insurance companies. The 2017 National Conference on the Individual and Small Group Markets brought industry executives and state health policy experts together to look at potential innovations in the individual and small group markets. My presentation summarizes our history, current state and some of the opportunity we see.

Legislative Update

Media are reporting today that the House of Representatives will vote on the American Health Care Act as early as Thursday. The Monday release of the Congressional Budget Office report scoring the bill — and the estimate that 24 million Americans would lose their health insurance coverage in 10 years — prompted a lot of discussion about potential changes to the legislation.

The Colorado Health Institute released an analysis of the current legislative proposal’s impact on Colorado, estimating that 600,000 Coloradans would lose coverage by 2030 if the proposal were to become law.

Recall that the debate in Congress prior to passing the Affordable Care Act took close to a year and it still feels early in the process. The seventh anniversary of that bill becoming law is also on Thursday.

In Recent News

You may find some valuable historical perspective in two media releases this week.

Writers with Vox.com went deep with a “lessons learned” piece that includes an interview with former President Obama.

Some of our own state’s lessons learned surfaced in a Colorado Public Radio interview with Bill Lindsay, a retired insurance executive who chaired the Blue Ribbon Commission for Healthcare Reform (the “208 Commission”) and who continues to work with the Colorado Commission on Affordable Health Care. The idea of creating what would become Connect for Health Colorado was born with the 208 Commission.

Take care,

Kevin

Kevin Patterson, MURP, MPA
Chief Executive Officer
Connect for Health Colorado