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Gov. Polis rolls out ‘roadmap’ to reduce healthcare costs in Colorado

Posted at 5:20 AM, Apr 04, 2019
and last updated 2019-04-04 14:18:25-04

DENVER – Gov. Jared Polis and Lt. Gov. Dianne Primavera announced their plan to reduce healthcare costs for Coloradans Thursday morning in Denver.

Gov. Polis laid out his “Roadmap for saving Coloradans money on healthcare” in an announcement outside Denver Health.

The plan featured six main points, which Polis billed as short-term solutions to reducing health care costs.

  1. Increase hospital price transparency
  2. Establish a reinsurance pool to reduce premiums
  3. Negotiate to drive down the cost of health insurance
  4. Lower hospital prices
  5. Reduce out-of-pocket costs
  6. Lower the cost of prescription drugs

Polis already signed a hospital transparency bill into law last week. That law requires hospitals to report their annual spending and expenditures as part of an effort to lower health care prices.

There are already bills going through the legislature to import prescription drugs from Canada and introduce a reinsurance pool designed to lower premiums for private insurers.

In addition to short-term solutions, Polis also mentioned plans to incentivize preventative care, introduce healthy options to children at schools, improve immunization rates and introduce a separate plan to address behavioral health.

Polis said his plan to improve behavioral health access will be announced next week.

News5 will update this story as we get reaction to the plan from representatives and receive more specific information about how Polis’ office will work to achieve the goals he presented during Thursday’s announcement.