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As health insurance premiums continue to soar and Colorado examines wide-scale health care reform, there has never been a more important time for the business community to engage in the debate. The Forum is a new project to help you connect the dots and weigh in on solutions.

Session ends with mixed bag on health care
  Going after the insurance industry was not what a blue ribbon commission had in mind when it recommended sweeping changes in health care at the beginning of the 2008 legislative session, the commission chairman said Monday.
  But Chairman Bill Lindsay acknowledged the Legislature this year established valuable building blocks to getting health care to 792,000 uninsured Coloradans.
  The General Assembly can take credit for making 55,000 more children eligible for public health insurance, making it easier to get those kids signed up and beginning the creation of a statewide public-health improvement plan. Senate Bill 217,on its way to the governor, calls for private insurers to submit proposals that could be made into a pool of low-cost, minimum-benefit plans for those without insurance.
  This wouldn't lead to enactment of any of the billion-dollar universal coverage plans proposed by the Blue-Ribbon Commission for Health-Care Reform, but Lindsay and others said they did not expect such seismic change right away.
  There seemed to be some reluctance among legislators to make giant steps when all presidential candidates are campaigning for some sort of federal health care program, said Jim Tatten, a lobbyist for the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry's Health Care Steering Committee. The Gazette

Top health care news

Lawmakers kill 'health kickbacks' bill aimed at prescriptions
   A bill aimed at barring health insurers from paying doctors to switch patients' drugs was killed by the Senate Appropriations Committee on Monday amid fears it also would block companies from rewarding doctors for improving patient care.
  The amended bill, based on a California law, would have banned health insurers, drug manufacturers and medical equipment makers from offering
incentives for denying, reducing or delaying care.
  It was backed by drug maker Pfizer and some patient-advocate groups.
  It was opposed by insurers such as Kaiser Permanente and AARP.
  Kaiser Persmanente lobbyist Susan Cox said the bill could have stopped her company, for example, from paying doctors for reducing the number of diabetes patients needing amputations by keeping close watch on patients through routine exams. Associated Press

Some workers with group plans more likely to lose coverage  
  People in fair or poor health who have health insurance are less likely to drop or lose coverage entirely if they have individual insurance than if they have small-group coverage, according to a new national study published Tuesday on the Health Affairs Web site.
  In particular, the study found that among workers in relatively worse health, those with small-group coverage who became unemployed were substantially more likely to also become uninsured than their counterparts with individual coverage.
  Study authors Mark Pauly and Robert Lieberthal of Wharton say this is largely due to a unique policy feature generally included in individual health plans: guaranteed renewal at class-average rates. This means that while an insurer may charge more or even deny coverage to individuals based on health status, an existing policyholder can renew at the rate charged to others in his or her risk class, regardless of any change in his or her health status.
  "By contrast, insurers may often raise premiums for group coverage, or even withdraw coverage entirely, when the risk composition of the group changes," said Pauly, the study's lead author and the Bendheim Professor in the Health Care Systems Department of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Health Affairs

Economic slowdown's side effect: hospitals get more nurses

  The ailing economy is helping ease the nursing shortage.
  With house prices falling and the cost of gasoline and food rising, many nurses are going back to work, in some cases to make up for the income of a spouse who has lost a job. Hospitals say part-time nurses are taking on extra shifts. And nursing schools are seeing an increase in people applying for refresher courses. Some nurses are putting off retirement.
  "We are seeing a temporary lessening of the nursing shortage," says Jane Llewellyn, vice president of clinical nursing affairs at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. But, she says, "as soon as the economy turns up we'll see them staying home again."
  It's a familiar pattern during economic slowdowns. For years, the high demand for nurses has allowed them to design work schedules that suit their financial and family needs. Many start off working full time on difficult shifts and then reduce their hours when they have a family -- the profession is more than 90% female -- or as they approach retirement. But when the economy goes sour, many nurses go back to work full time. Wall Street Journal