Panel recommends insurance requirement for residents.(HEALTH CARE)

A state commission says improving Colorado's healthcare system should include a requirement that all legal residents have a minimum level of insurance.

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Such a mandate, part of the 27-member panel's $1.23 billion package of recommendations, would be feasible if the state:

* Expanded eligibility for public programs.

* Provided sliding-scale subsidies for low-income workers to buy private insurance.

* Required health plans to cover everyone regardless of health status (within certain limits) and

* Enforced the mandate through the income tax system.

Four members of the Blue Ribbon Commission for Health Care Reform outlined highlights of the recommendations at a Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce meeting on Feb. 1, a day after the bipartisan panel presented their findings to state lawmakers.

William Lindsey, chairman of the health-care commission and co-chair of the chamber's health-care committee, said the timing of the report wasn't good since it arrives during an election year.

But he shrugged off a Denver Post headline that said the plan's proposals would likely get shelved. Sen. Bob Hagedorn, D-Aurora, who chairs the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, told the Post "none of the five proposals would make it into law anytime soon."

There are already bills in the works that address parts of the commission's recommendations, said Lindsey, who noted "there isn't enough money in the system to do everything that is required of the report."

About 88 percent of the 792,000 Coloradans who do not have health insurance would be covered by the panel's plan. The report says 75 percent of uninsured residents have family incomes less than $50,000 a year and that 13 percent have family incomes more than $75,000.

Penfield Tate, co-chairman of the chamber's health-care committee, said he's confident there are legislators willing to tackle the problem.

"As a state, we have to begin to make some incremental movement," he said.

Read the commission's report at www.colorado.gov/208com-mission

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