Uncertainties still dog rollout of health-care reform

LONGMONT – Health-care industry representatives expressed uncertainty over issues that have dogged the rollout of the Affordable Care Act at a gathering of industry leaders Friday.

Issues surrounding the rollout of the Affordable Care Act have tested the mettle of health-care providers in Northern Colorado and the Boulder Valley, and they questioned whether President Obama’s signature health-care initiative will deliver on its promise to offer reasonably priced health care.

Industry representatives met Friday morning for panel discussions on health-care reform during the conference titled “Pulse: What’s Next for Health Care Reform,” at the Plaza Convention Center in Longmont. The conference was sponsored by BizWest.

The situation should improve, but the health-care industry surely will continue to have its share of problems, said keynote speaker, Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis, vice president of government and external relations for Kaiser Permanente Colorado.

“There is all kinds of messiness that we’re going to have to get straightened out,” she said.

One example is the lack of interoperability between the state health-care exchange Connect for Health Colorado and private insurance that led to double enrollment of people in exchange and private-insurance plans, she said.

Still, Allen-Davis acknowledged that health-insurance companies have benefited from health-care reform based on higher demand from new consumers who have bought health plans.

“The biggest beneficiary in this is the insurance industry,” she said.

Hospital CEOs have misgivings about health-care reform, worrying that it will harm their business.

“We get paid on how full the hospital is,” said Dennis Barts, CEO of Avista Adventist Hospital in Louisville. “None of us are sure what the net revenue of an empty hospital is.”

But he also praised the aim of health-care reform: to provide people greater access to health care.

Meanwhile, health-insurance brokers fear that health-insurance premiums will rise significantly higher in 2016 despite only modest increases approved by the state Division of Insurance in 2015.

Next year, premiums for individual plans will rise by an average 5.3 percent in the Fort Collins area and 4.6 percent in the Greeley area. In Boulder, they will rise 0.4 percent for individual plan premiums.

Statewide, premiums will rise an average 0.7 percent for individual plans and an average 2.5 percent for small-group plans.

“The beauty of this is we did see the slowing of the rate of rise in premiums,” Allen-Davis said. But, “There’s going to be wide swings in premium costs over the next several years.”

Jim Marsh, president of Hofgard Benefits in Boulder, said he estimates premiums will rise by “35 to 45 percent” in 2016.

“Budget for it, because it’s coming,” he said.

Beyond health-insurance premiums, health-care industry representatives agreed that they believed that efforts to repeal health care reform would fall short.

“This isn’t going away,” said Kendra Johnson, benefits consultant for Flood & Peterson Insurance Inc. in Fort Collins. “There has been so much money and time spent.”

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