The Denver Post editorial board wanted to advance the conversation about fixing the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and they invited CHI to provide the lead article in a special Perspective section — the Sunday opinion pages — on October 22, 2017.
In the article, CHI President and CEO Michele Lueck shared a personal example of why insurance coverage matters. Late this summer, CHI Senior Data Analyst Rebecca Silvernale gave birth to a son, Liam, born 12 weeks early. After nearly three months in neonatal intensive care, Liam went home with his parents. The ordeal would have bankrupted an uninsured family — or even a family with insurance in the days before the ACA banned lifetime payout limits on health insurance policies.
CHI's article observes that the protracted debate over ACA repeal has helped advance a consensus that health coverage matters. With that in mind, the article proposes three steps to take to fix the ACA and two pitfalls to avoid:
- Expanded tax credits could help middle class people left behind by the ACA to afford insurance.
- Efforts toward health literacy could make people healthier while cutting the use of expensive care.
- Medicaid costs might be addressed through existing or future reforms to how the program is run.
- Transparency in prices is a hot topic, but the evidence for its cost-cutting potential isn't good.
- One-party plans like single-payer health care are not likely to succeed — or last if they do — in such a fractured political environment.
Other articles in the Post section came from Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., and Gov. John Hickenlooper, D. The Post also wrote a staff editorial proposing a way forward on the ACA.
Read CHI's article here or by clicking on the page to the right.