In a new op-ed published by Colorado Politics, Colorado State Senator Janice Rich encourages stakeholders to acknowledge the “overwhelmingly negative impact the one-size-fits-all Colorado Option has on the state’s health insurance market – specifically its contribution to raising costs for patients and their families” during the Division of Insurance’s Health Insurance Affordability Enterprise Stakeholder Meeting on June 11. Senator Rich writes:

The state government-run health insurance system known as the Colorado Option passed the legislature in 2021. Its supporters promised it would lower insurance costs for individuals and increase choice in the individual and small-group health insurance markets. Advocates said it would decrease premiums and improve access to health care in every corner of the state. But it has failed on all these fronts.

Three years later, we continue to see the state government-controlled health care option is having the opposite effect of what was promised. Health care premiums in the individual market have not gone down and many consumers have fewer options when choosing an insurance plan. In short, the Colorado Option has failed to solve our health care affordability problems — and in many ways, it’s actually made them worse …

A report released in April concluded only 15% of plans met the first-year premium targets, and even fewer plans met the second-year targets. The arbitrary price controls set by the Colorado Option simply did not work — they were unsustainable and unable to lower costs for consumers. Instead, insurance premiums have gone up across individual market plans by an average of 10%, after a similar double-digit increase in 2023.

In many Colorado counties, individuals would have to spend more to enroll in the Colorado Option than they would to enroll in a traditional health plan. Maybe that’s why only 1.5% of our state’s population enrolled in the Colorado Option …

A one-size-fits-all, state government-imposed health insurance system that increases costs, fails to appeal to consumers and harms competition is no solution to our health care problems.

To read Senator Rich’s full op-ed, click here.