"Public Option" returns to House after premium target reduction

The 2021 Colorado General Assembly is in its final weeks, with an adjournment mandated by law no later than June 12. It is likely, however, that lawmakers will head home sooner than that, possibly as early as Monday, June 7.

The past week has been a busy one with 276 measures remaining on the legislature’s calendar. 

One bill that is nearing completion: the bill formerly known as the public option. House Bill 1232 as introduced would have set up a state-run health insurance plan, to go into effect if health insurers, doctors and hospitals failed to achieve a goal of reducing insurance premiums by 20 percent over a two-year period. Should the premium reduction targets not be met, the state Commissioner of Insurance would create a health insurance plan for the individual and small group market; that’s companies with fewer than 100 employees. 

But the bill faced massive opposition from the healthcare providers, hospitals and health insurance companies, including a million-dollar ad campaign against it. By the time the bill left the state Senate this past week, the State-run option was gone; in its place only the State-created insurance plan, and premium reduction targets of 15 percent over three years. 

HB 1232 won a 19-16 vote that was much closer than the vote would indicate. In addition to a “no” vote from Senator Rachel Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat, at least two other Senate Democrats wavered up to the last minute. State Sens. Rhonda Fields of Aurora and Joann Ginal of Fort Collins both criticized the bill; Fields for its lack of attention to equity; Ginal for its impact on hospitals. However, both voted for it on May 26. The bill headed back to the House for its review of amendments, the most notable reducing the premium target to 15 percent. 

The General Assembly also is wrapping up action on several stimulus packages. The first is bills tied to an $800 million stimulus for COVID-19 relief for a wide variety of purposes. That money is left over from higher-than-expected tax revenues in the 2019 tax year. Those revenues did not come in until later in 2020, after the State budget had already been finished.

Among the stimulus proposals: 

House Bill 1262 would put $9 million toward the National Western Stock Show and other livestock events, such as county fairs. The bill, however, has been stalled in the Senate Appropriations Committee for more than two weeks. Among its sponsors: Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling.

House Bill 1289 would spend $75 million on broadband grants, although only $5 million is headed to local governments. The bill also awaits action in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Colorado Proud, the Department of Agriculture’s marketing program for Colorado products, would get a $2.5 million boost from Senate Bill 203, which is awaiting its final vote in the House before heading to the governor for action.

A bill to establish a loan program for the agriculture supply chain would get $30 million under Senate Bill 248. The Colorado Agricultural Future Loan Program would provide “farm to market” infrastructure loans and low interest loans to eligible farmers, ranchers and businesses.

The infrastructure loans are intended to help with agricultural processing, defined in the bill as packaging, sorting, storage or grading of livestock, livestock products, agricultural commodities and plants (crops).

The second loan program prioritizes farmers and ranchers who have been in business less than 10 years and/or who come from underrepresented or underserved populations.

The $800 million is small compared to what lawmakers will spend from the American Rescue Plan, a total of $3.8 billion that is headed toward the State government. That does not consider money from the ARP headed to local governments, school districts or higher ed institutions.

Last week, Governor Jared Polis, surrounded by Democratic lawmakers and members of Congress, announced that lawmakers are beginning to plan on how to spend that money. About one-third will head to the state budget to cover lost revenue from the pandemic. Democratic lawmakers said they will use some of that money to prepay obligations that will put the state on a more sustainable future. That could include controlled maintenance, which is maintenance of state-owned buildings, largely in higher education. 

Among the other areas to be funded: behavioral and mental health programs, including for substance abuse; housing, including affordable housing and housing for the homeless; business development, job creation and money for parks and agriculture, including more funding for the National Western Stock Show.

Most of that money will not be spent until the 2022 season; Federal guidelines allow up to five years for spending the total amount.

Polis last week was handed a defeat on one of his board and commission appointments, when the state Senate rejected an appointment to the State groundwater commission. The vote was 12-21, with six Democrats voting against the nominee, Jason Crane of Springfield and the Southern High Plains district. 

The issue, according to Sen. Don Coram, R-Montrose and other senators, wasn’t necessarily Crane, but that the groundwater commission has been rubber-stamping water permits from the Ogallala aquifer in the High Plains district. That included some three dozen wells tied to a Nebraska man that has led to claims that his company is engaging in water speculation. 

In December 2019, Ronald Krutsinger, of Nebraska, bought the 7,000-acre farm and water rights belonging to one of the commissioners, Blake Gourley, but Krutsinger sold that farm four days earlier to a man in Iowa. Coram said the commission is not doing its due diligence to ensure the aquifer is not over-appropriated.

Coram, in advocating against Crane’s nomination, said it would send a signal both to the commission and the Governor that the General Assembly is watching.

Finally, after another round of negotiations, the bills on conservation easements are both nearing their final approvals. 

Senate Bill 33 was stalled in the Senate Appropriations Committee for a week while Sonnenberg and co-sponsor Sen. Faith Winter, D-Westminster, negotiated how to get the bill’s agency costs reduced. 

The bill sets up a process for reparations for those cheated out of tax credits by the Department of Revenue between 2000 and 2013 for easements donated to land trusts and counties. 

The department sought nearly $4 million to set up the reparations program, but Sonnenberg and Winter said that it is not likely that everyone who lost tax credits would apply for reparations, and that would reduce the department’s costs. The bill won a 5-2 vote from the committee and a 33-2 vote from the full Senate. It now heads to the House.

House Bill 1233, which would increase the tax credits for those who seek conservation easements in the future, won a 5-1 approval from the Senate Finance Committee on May 20 and is now awaiting action from the Senate Appropriations Committee. Under the bill, tax credits would increase from 50 percent of the easement’s value to 90 percent. 

Both bills are now endorsed by the working group that was established under a 2019 law and tasked with figuring out the reparations issue as well as other related issues.