IN THE STATES: Colorado Expands Coverage and Hospital Care

In what's been hailed as the most significant health legislation in Colorado in some 40 years, Colorado has a new law that will help cover up to 100,000 uninsured people and reduce some of the uncompensated care and cost-shifting that hurts the state's health care system and raises costs for people who are insured. It's an impressive achievement in a time of great economic pressure—one that we hope the folks here in Washington notice.

"At no increased cost to taxpayers, the Colorado Healthcare Affordability Act will allow us to provide critical health services to people who need those services the most," Gov. Bill Ritter said in a statement when he signed it into law earlier this week.

The law needs to get final approval from federal Medicaid officials. The goal is to implement it next spring. Ritter said that the law will provide coverage to about 100,000 and improve access to hospital care for the other 700,000 uninsured. (Colorado had an estimated 800,000 uninsured in 2007, that figure may be rising because of the job losses of the recession.)

The new law will devote $1.2 billion—an estimated $600 million each from hospital provider fees and federal Medicaid matching funds—to support health care for low income people on Medicaid and the state's children's health insurance program. Hospitals will get better reimbursements for treating patients on Medicaid and the Colorado Indigent Care Program (CICP).

Denver's Channel 7 reported that the law garnered bipartisan support during months of negotiations, in part because it will keep health care costs down. When the uninsured get coverage, they get better access to doctors, keeping them out of emergency rooms.

"The most expensive place to treat someone is in the emergency room," Steven Summer, President and CEO of the Colorado Hospital Association, told the station. "What happens is (uninsured patients) go there because they don't have a physician."