Open Enrollment Readiness

10/23/2020

We are just over a week out from the start of our Open Enrollment Period for 2021 health coverage. We are loading plan options in our Quick Cost and Plan Finder Tool and ensuring all the details are ready with our application system. Connect for Health Colorado staff are busy finalizing marketing and advertising plans to get the word out. We also know our brokers and assisters are starting to get appointments on the books to help enroll customers, so we redesigned and just launched our Open Enrollment electronic marketing materials to better support virtual appointments.

While we are getting ready here in Colorado, I also had the opportunity to share about the good work we are doing on a federal level. I testified before the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight about the flexibility we have as a state-based marketplace, the success we had with the emergency Special Enrollment period in response to COVID, and relationships we’ve built with those of you in our Assistance Network and Broker community.  You can watch the complete Ways and Means Committee hearing (I start at the 37:45 mark) or read the written testimony I submitted online.

Over the past few years, we have worked behind the scenes to create a Public Benefit Corporation, which will help us further our mission by expanding the products and services we can offer across the state. We are nearing the final stages of launching the organization. This PBC will be an important component of implementing Senate Bill 215, the Health Insurance Affordability Enterprise.

Connect for Health Colorado’s Board of Directors recently passed an important milestone in the PBC’s creation, by appointing a Board of Directors to oversee the strategic vision of this organization. I will be a member of this Board, and am pleased to announce the appointments of the following:

  • Marc Arnusch, owner, Arnusch Farms;
  • Mara Baer, Founder and President, AgoHealth, LLC;
  • Lilia Cervantes, MD, Internal Medicine/Associate Professor, Denver Health/CU Anschutz
  • Mitzi Moran, CEO, Sunrise Community Health
  • Brad O’Neill, co-founder, Beyond Insurance/Golden Bee Advisors
  • Amanda Massey, Executive Director, Colorado Association of Health Plans

Denver Business Journal Award

I am honored to have recently been named one of Denver Business Journal’s Most Admired CEO’s of 2020. I appreciate the recognition and am reminded how proud I am to lead an organization with a mission to increase access, affordability and choice for individuals and small employers purchasing health insurance in Colorado.

Take care,

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