85,000 Coloradans Lost Small-Business Health Insurance Last Year

Rising health care costs and "skyrocketing" premiums have led to an additional 85,000 uninsured residents in Colorado, who last year were covered under employer-based health plans sponsored by small businesses, the Denver Rocky Mountain News reports. In the past 18 months, the number of insurance companies that cover small-business employees in the state has dropped from 44 to 24, according to state Insurance Commissioner William Kirven. The shift is in part the result of healthy, self-employed people who are "leaving the pricey small-group" insurance market. Small businesses are then left with a disproportionate share of workers with chronic health problems that make them more expensive to insure. Consequently, insurers that continue to cover small-business employees have raised premiums and out-of-pocket costs, such as prescription drug copayments. According to the Colorado Division of Insurance, health plan premiums have tripled over the last 10 years, are expected to increase 15% this year and could increase by more than 10% next year. "This is a very severe problem that we don't have the public will to deal with right now," Dr. Michael Earnest, medical director for quality management at Denver Health and Hospitals, said (Scanlon, Denver Rocky Mountain News, 6/3).