{"id":29384,"date":"2024-02-05T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-05T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/you-shouldnt-have-to-pay-your-deductible-twice-lawmakers-search-for-solutions-after-insurance-implosion\/"},"modified":"2024-02-05T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-02-05T13:00:00","slug":"you-shouldnt-have-to-pay-your-deductible-twice-lawmakers-search-for-solutions-after-insurance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/you-shouldnt-have-to-pay-your-deductible-twice-lawmakers-search-for-solutions-after-insurance\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018You shouldn\u2019t have to pay your deductible twice\u2019 \u2014 Lawmakers search for solutions after insurance implosion"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The
The State Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024, in Denver. (AP Photo\/David Zalubowski)<\/span>David Zalubowski<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now, state lawmakers are considering changes that could reduce the fallout for future victims of insurance company meltdowns. A new bill would minimize the extra costs that can rack up for consumers who lose their insurer midyear.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou shouldn\u2019t have to pay your deductible twice or hit your out-of-pocket maximum twice,\u201d said Rep. Kyle Brown, a Democratic sponsor of the measure. \u201cIt\u2019s not your fault that the insurance company went out of business and therefore you shouldn\u2019t be on the hook for this again.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a response to the Friday Health debacle. The company shut down its Colorado business in the middle of the plan year, when many consumers had already spent hundreds \u2014 or thousands \u2014 of dollars toward meeting their deductible.<\/p>\n

Normally, once the deductible is reached, the insurer starts paying out for more health-care costs. But when Friday\u2019s members were forced to switch to new insurers, they essentially lost all their progress. Many of those that signed on with new insurers, found themselves back at zero.<\/p>\n

Under Brown\u2019s bill, that progress wouldn\u2019t be lost in the future. If an insurer collapses, consumers could carry over their progress on out-of-pocket costs to their new plans. Essentially, the new insurer would have to cut the customer a break.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is something that I think we should do to protect patients and make sure that they don\u2019t have to take on unreasonable healthcare costs that they weren\u2019t expecting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The bill wouldn\u2019t help people who were affected by the Friday Health shutdown, instead applying only to future incidents.<\/p>\n

Last year, state officials asked insurers to voluntarily honor the deductibles of Friday Health clients. Kaiser Permanente and Denver Health Medical Plan obliged, but others refused.<\/p>\n

Lauren Gibbs, a Lakewood-based Realtor, said she lost out on thousands of dollars when she had to switch from Friday Health.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t get this help when I needed it, and that $3,000 is still on my credit card and I\u2019m paying interest on it,\u201d she said on Friday. She supports the idea of the new bill, but she also sees it as merely treating a symptom.<\/p>\n

Experts say Friday Health grew too fast, offering unrealistic prices in some of its markets and ultimately building an unsustainable business. (Another investor-powered \u201cinsurtech\u201d company, Bright Healthcare, also recently left the Colorado market, although it did so in a more orderly fashion.)<\/p>\n

\u201cI really think we need to go upstream to the regulators. It just shouldn\u2019t be allowed to happen,\u201d Gibbs said.<\/p>\n

Colorado state officials say they policed Friday Health closely, even forcing it to raise its prices. They have put some of the blame on other states, where the carrier was allowed to grow much more aggressively.<\/p>\n

Insurance carriers haven\u2019t said much yet about the new statehouse bill, but they are raising concerns about its financial implications.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Colorado Association of Health Plans is working with the sponsor on amendments to ensure that Coloradans are made whole while protecting the stability of Colorado\u2019s health insurance market,\u201d wrote Saskia Young, executive director of the Colorado Association of Health Plans. The organization didn\u2019t offer further detail.<\/p>\n

The measure\u2019s sponsors also include Rep. Andy Boesenecker and Sen. Dylan Roberts, both Democrats. It\u2019s scheduled for its first hearing on Feb. 13 at the House Health & Human Services Committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

State Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024, in Denver. (AP Photo\/David Zalubowski)David Zalubowski Now, state lawmakers are considering changes that could reduce the fallout for future victims of insurance company meltdowns. A new bill would minimize the extra costs that can rack up for consumers who lose their insurer midyear. \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t have to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,28,1346,265],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-29384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-headlines","tag-health-insurance","tag-politics"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29384","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=29384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29384"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=29384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}