Recently, a Denver Post columnist wrote the opinion piece “The ‘Colorado Option’ left me high and dry without health insurance, again,” that made a bizarre and inaccurate claim about the Colorado health insurance market.
The Colorado Option is already saving Coloradans who buy their own insurance up to $540 per year in some parts of the state, with more savings on the way.
The opinion columnist insinuated that Humana, Oscar Health, Bright Health and Friday Health Plans left the Colorado market because of the Colorado Option. This is absolutely not the case. This isn’t something I know only because of my position as Colorado’s Insurance Commissioner, but because of facts that were widely reported on across the country.
For example, Humana exited the commercial health insurance market throughout the entire country. The company literally stopped selling health insurance in every state and decided to focus solely on Medicare and Medicaid. The Colorado Option is not the reason a multibillion-dollar company left the commercial insurance space nationally.
Oscar Health simply couldn’t compete in Colorado’s strong health insurance market. The company was never able to enroll more than 3,700 people in its health plans in any given year. Failure to attract customers means that their product simply wasn’t attractively priced for consumers. The company also pulled out of Arkansas, which does not have the Colorado Option.
The mismanagement of Bright Health has been well documented. They grew too much, too fast, at premium levels in some markets that were simply too low to sustain a viable business. As a result, the company suffered substantial losses, which led every state where the company operated – 17 total – to remove their plans for 2023.
Similarly, Friday Health Plans experienced unsustainable losses throughout the country as a result of mismanagement, and six states shut the company down.
In a free market system like ours, some companies will be unable to compete, some will make bad decisions, and others will succeed and grow because of better prices or services.
Meanwhile, Select Health Insurance is entering the Colorado individual market for 2024. Select Health is an established company in the Mountain West region, currently providing plans to members in Utah, Idaho and Nevada. The company was fully aware of the Colorado Option when it made the decision to enter the Colorado market.
But what is most important is that Coloradans like the Colorado Option. It’s saving people money on health care. You don’t have to take my word for it, the facts speak for themselves.
In its first year, over 38,000 people enrolled in the Colorado Option, capturing 13% of the entire individual market. That’s 10 times the number of people that Oscar was ever able to enroll in Colorado. Ask anyone with a modicum of business expertise and they would tell you that a new product capturing 13% of the market in its first year is a success. If Nike released a new Coach Prime sneaker and it captured 13% of the market in its first year, they’d be as ecstatic as every CU fan was after the Buffs beat TCU this season.
And the program is saving people money. In fact, because of the Colorado Option and the state’s innovative Reinsurance Program, which the legislature passed and Gov. Jared Polis signed into law, the federal government has given the state more money than we’ve ever received in pass-through funding – money we saved them on Affordable Care Act subsidies. In total, the federal government is giving Colorado over $245 million, which we use to expand coverage and make health insurance more affordable for the people with the lowest incomes enrolled in the individual market.
The fact is that everyone in the health insurance ecosystem has reason to celebrate the Colorado Option. The health care cost curve is actually bending down because hospitals are stepping up and reducing rates with insurers for the Colorado Option. Insurers are enrolling Coloradans in a high quality, affordable product. More people are being covered, which means less uncompensated care. Most importantly, the Colorado Option is saving people money on health care.
Governor Polis charged me to do everything I can to save people money on health care, and successfully implementing the Colorado Option is a key part of reducing costs and is already becoming a national model. Insurance companies continue to come to Colorado and to expand within Colorado. My sincere hope is that we will all start working together, rather than playing politics, to continue to help Coloradans. That is exactly what we will be doing at the Colorado Division of Insurance.
Michael Conway is the Colorado insurance commissioner.
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