Health-care bills prepared for ’06 legislative session

The passage of Referendum C earlier this month gives some breathing room to state Legislators and organizations pushing for several bills related to health care during the next legislative session.

But the measure, which allows the state to keep and spend up to $3.7 billion over the next five years, rather than refunding it to taxpayers as mandated by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, isn’t a permanent solution to the state’s budget woes, some legislators said.

“We are drowning, and with C, we’ll be treading water,´ said State Rep. Jim Riesberg, a Democrat who represents east Greeley, Garden City and Evans. “Referendum C won’t get us back to shore.”

On issues related to health care, the extra money means there’s a better chance that proposed legislation will go forward when the Colorado General Assembly opens its 2006 session in January.

Several committees met during the summer to discuss health-care legislation to propose next session. Among the proposals are a bill that would require hospitals to report hospital-acquired infections, three bills that would give health-insurance coverage to uninsured Colorado residents and a bill aimed at methamphetamine manufacturers and users.

Hospital infections

The Colorado Consumer Health Initiative, a Denver-based group that represents about 200 health-care organizations in Colorado, is keeping its eye on the hospital infections bill, which would require hospital officials to track the three most common infections that occur in their facilities.

Five states – Pennsylvania, Illinois, Missouri, Florida and Virginia – have passed similar measures. The same bill was proposed in the Colorado Legislature last year, but didn’t pass.

The thinking behind the bill is that if hospitals are required to report the number of infections, they will be motivated to implement measures to keep that number down.

“Just having to report the number will cause the number of infections to go down,´ said Ben Davis, communications director for the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative. “Hospital staff will pay more attention to preventing infections.”

The measure is projected to save the state $3 million a year in Medicaid costs, according to the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Finance.

It would cost the state about $50,000 to start the program, Davis said.

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 90,000 people a year die nationwide because of infections they contract while in the hospital. Another 1.9 million suffer from infection-related illnesses. Hospital infections add an estimated $5 billion annually to the nation’s health-care bill because of additional treatments and days spent in the hospital by patients who develop them.

Help for the uninsured

Voter approval of Referendum C means Colorado residents without health insurance may get some help next year. Legislators plan to propose three bills that would help the uninsured. All three are competing for the same $15 million that would come from Referendum C, Riesberg said.

“Since they’re competing for the same dollars, only one will be able to move forward,” he said.

An estimated 769,000 Colorado residents do not have health insurance, and thousands of others are considered under-insured, Riesberg said.

Those without health insurance put the biggest strain on the health-care system because they use emergency rooms, the most expensive basic medical care, as their primary-care facilities.

Major hospital emergency rooms are required to treat the uninsured, but they lose money because they don’t get enough reimbursement from the government to cover the costs. Some emergency rooms across the country have had to close because of the increasing cost to treat the uninsured.

“It’s cheaper in the long run to give them basic coverage because it will keep them out of the emergency rooms,” Riesberg said.

Fighting methamphetamines

The Colorado Children’s Campaign, a Denver-based group that gathers data and lobbies the legislature about issues relating to children, is getting behind a bill next session that would require cold medicines used to make methamphetamine be purchased behind the counter at pharmacies across the state.

The Colorado Children’s Campaign first became aware of the issue through its work in rural Colorado counties, where methamphetamine use has become a community health problem.

Rural areas have become a target for methamphetamine labs because chemicals used for its production, such as in fertilizers, are readily available in farming communities.

Government costs related to addressing methamphetamine use in counties of northeastern Colorado alone increased $1 million between 1999 and 2001, according to a 2002 study done by the Colorado State University Cooperative Extension and the Colorado Department of Local Affairs.

Government costs involved child abuse and neglect, substance abuse, mental health, family violence, emergency health services, law enforcement, court costs, fire damage and control and property damage.

The bill next session, to be sponsored by Rep. Judy Solano, D-Brighton, is one step in tackling the issue. Included in the bill may be an age limit to purchase cold medicine, a registry for frequent buyers and photo identification required for purchases, said Bruce Atchison, executive vice president of the Colorado Children’s Campaign.

Another bill on the horizon for next session would create training programs for law enforcement officers and others who respond to methamphetamine calls as well as create detoxification programs for children affected by methamphetamine.

The bill would also create stiffer penalties for methamphetamine users. Along with drug charges, users with children could also be charged with child abuse and neglect. The Colorado Children’s Campaign is among several statewide coalitions in support of the bill.

“We can’t solve it all in one year,” Atchison said. “It’s a community health problem that will take a lot of effort.”

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