{"id":115095,"date":"2015-01-22T19:52:17","date_gmt":"2015-01-23T02:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/health-exchange-may-face-audit\/"},"modified":"2015-01-22T19:52:17","modified_gmt":"2015-01-23T02:52:17","slug":"health-exchange-may-face-audit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/health-exchange-may-face-audit\/","title":{"rendered":"Health exchange may face audit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A sign placed out on the 16th Street Mall beckons people to sign up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. Lawmakers are considering a performance audit of Colorado\u2019s health exchange.<\/span>Kathryn Scott Osler\/The Denver Post file photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

DENVER \u2013 Following a blistering report released in December, lawmakers on Wednesday offered bipartisan support to a measure that would require extensive audits of Colorado\u2019s online health-insurance marketplace.<\/p>\n

The unanimous vote for Senate Bill 19 by the Senate Health and Human Services Committee reflects a change in tone after Senate Democrats last year killed a similar measure that would have required an audit of Connect for Health Colorado.<\/p>\n

The measure this year would allow the state auditor to conduct a performance audit, and submit a report to lawmakers. The bill was amended on Tuesday to extend the audit to other state agencies when they overlap with the exchange.<\/p>\n

The report released by the auditor\u2019s office in December highlighted more than $32 million in problems with dozens of payments and reimbursements.<\/p>\n

But Auditor Dianne Ray said her office was unable to conduct a complete review, including effectiveness of the exchange\u2019s website and grant programs, eligibility-determination processes, marketing practices, fee-setting methods, and long-term fiscal stability.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did not receive that authority (last year) so we continued with the limited performance audit authority that we had,\u201d Ray told lawmakers.<\/p>\n

For Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud \u2013 who opposed creation of the exchange in 2011 when a bipartisan bill was up in the Legislature \u2013 the extensive audit requirement is a necessary means for transparency.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are better ways to deal with the medical insurance issues for the people of Colorado, but this is the system that has been placed into effect, and I believe the state auditor should have the ability to determine just how the performance is working,\u201d Lundberg said.<\/p>\n

The measure even had support from exchange officials themselves. Interim Chief Executive Gary Drews said his organization is taking the audit findings and request for transparency seriously.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe, as an organization, do want to be transparent and improve our operations at every opportunity,\u201d Drews said.<\/p>\n

Sen. Cheri Jahn, D-Wheat Ridge \u2013 who carried the measure along with Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling \u2013 applauded exchange officials for their support. But Jahn said the Legislature must act to ensure the system\u2019s stability.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur job is to make sure that this works really, really well, because this needs to be a success,\u201d Jahn said.<\/p>\n

Sen. Linda Newell, D-Littleton, explained that she was unable to support the audit bill last year because she didn\u2019t believe enough time had passed to conduct a comprehensive investigation. She supported it this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t think it was time,\u201d Newell said. \u201cI didn\u2019t think it had percolated. Most of the time we do audits after three years of operation or more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

advances measure that would require extensive review<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":115096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[94,13,1347,1346,2172],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-115095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-colorado-state-government","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-government-health-care","tag-health-insurance","tag-healthcare-policy"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115095"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=115095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}