Colorado Department of Insurance
c/o State Insurance Commissioner Michael Conway
cc: Governor John Hickenlooper
1560 Broadway, Suite 850
Denver, CO 80202
Dear Mr. Conway,
Vail Valley Partnership is the regional chamber of commerce representing Eagle County. We represent 850 business members, consisting of 80 percent of the local workforce. Health care continues to present a significant challenge to our business community, and we believe that health care solutions require collaboration.
Clearly, there is no “one size fits all” blueprints for success when addressing community issues such as health insurance costs. Colorado communities are diverse and face different challenges. In order to address our health care costs, communities must build on strengths, leverage available resources, and respond to unique needs.
Working together is key to making meaningful change. Every community is different, and our approach to addressing health insurance costs and improving health outcomes will vary across Colorado. However, there is one constant we know: when people work together sharing vision and commitment, it can yield better results than working alone.
Our aging population, and an increasing demand for lower cost insurance projects across industry sectors, requires a concerted community approach to insurance products. It is incumbent upon the community to continue to build a business-friendly environment, making Eagle County an attractive place to conduct business by creating an innovative health care group product that works for all stakeholders.
There are only two health insurance companies (payers) on the ACA exchange (the number of payers has dropped each year since launch) – Kaiser Permanente and Anthem BlueCross Blue Shield offer plans in our market.
People want to stay local for their health care, but the individual market is increasingly limited and 80 percent of our business community consists of businesses with less than 10 employees.
We hope to implement a localized health care solution within Eagle County to support businesses by creating an environment that lowers health insurance costs for our residents and workforce in order to support our current and future workforce in a meaningful way and which also supports our local health care providers. Yet we continue to lack a willing partner from the State of Colorado.
Here’s what you said at a discussion in Summit County last month. From our perspective it’s not a great comment, and not conducive to addressing our health care challenges in the high country.
You explained that the costs have always been high, and continue to be, but because of fragmentation in the health care market as well as instability due to providers backing out of certain markets, those costs get disproportionately spread to areas like Summit (and Eagle) County. Unfortunately, you similarly shot down ideas such as creating local health insurance co-ops or buying insurance across state lines.
“Local insurance compacts are nice in theory, but providing care is far, far too expensive for a small group to pay for,” Conway explained. “And buying across state lines is great in theory too, but health care is not national, it’s local.”
Our question: Why?
This model has proven to work in other states such as Missouri, South Carolina, and Wyoming. Is Colorado so different, or is the state bureaucracy so cumbersome that you are more interested in platitudes and finger pointing than in problem solving? We certainly hope not.
Local providers are willing to work with local partners to provide local solutions that would result in significant cost savings to plan participants – yet the state presents barriers to potential local solutions. We urge you to work with us as we work to provide local solutions to this community issue. It is past time to allow rural communities to pioneer effective solutions instead of misguided legislation from the capitol – good intentions, but missing the mark.
We look forward to your engagement as we move forward.
Sincerely,
Chris Romer
President & CEO
Vail Valley Partnership
970.477.4016
cromer@visitvailvalley.com
cc: Eagle County board of county commissioners; State Senator Kerry Donovan; State Representative Dylan Roberts; Eagle County Mayor/Managers