Colorado HB 1293: Tax Sick People to Create a Hospital Slush Fund
March 29th, 2009 | by Brian Schwartz |So says Linda Gorman in a new Issue Backgrounder on this bill. Here’s the summary:
- Adds a tax of as much as 5.5 percent (the tax is called a “fee” in the bill) to every patient’s hospital bill. The potential revenue raised from the patient tax could cost Colorado’s citizens more than $573,000,000 a year in higher health care costs.
- Attempts to evade the plain language of TABOR by calling a tax a fee.
- Requires hospitals to mislead patients about the tax. The bill specifically prohibits hospitals from listing the tax as a line item on patient bills.
- Significantly expands medical assistance programs without a stable funding base. In some cases, people with median household earnings or income will be eligible for Medicaid.
- Will increase private health insurance premiums and, potentially, the Medicare costsharing amounts paid by the elderly.
- Reimburses hospitals for 100 percent of hospital determined costs without adequate oversight.
- Stops general fund appropriations to hospitals from going below their 2008 levels without being “made up.”
- Earmarks payments for an unspecified “group facilitator.”
