Healthcare
The single largest stressor any of us have ever seen on our healthcare system, the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, has exposed critical flaws in our United States and Colorado healthcare infrastructure. Simply having insufficient coverage or no coverage at all puts individuals and families at a significant disadvantage in avoiding serious infection.
Supply chains for critical equipment and supplies were disrupted. Healthcare workers have been working difficult hours in substandard conditions. A lack of both common health infrastructure and universal coverage has prevented an appropriate and effective national and state response to a highly communicable virus, resulting in a multi-year pandemic.
It is imperative that a comprehensive and universal response to the gaps in our healthcare system is made at once. We cannot tolerate the inevitable effects of a “market-based” system on personal and public health when healthcare does not function like a perfect market, resulting in many Coloradans being uninsured or under-insured and exposing them to financial stress and medical bankruptcy.
Human Right
Health is a fundamental human right indispensable for the exercise of other human rights. It is intrinsic to our inalienable rights of ‘Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,’ as well as a fundamental goal embodied in the Constitutional call for our common defense and promotion of our general welfare.
Recognizing universal healthcare as a human right, we support the financing of healthcare through a public single payer system, demonstrated to be the most cost-effective and highest-quality approach to health coverage possible as described in the Colorado Health Care Cost Analysis Task Force report of 2021 and Colorado’s Blue Ribbon 208 Commission. It does not require any change to private healthcare delivery other than greatly simplifying provider claims filing and payment.
Universal
The Colorado Democratic Party embodies justice and a respect for rights, as well as empathy and caring for others, so healthcare policies must cover and protect all Colorado residents.
Health coverage must be universal, continuous, and portable. It should not be linked to employment status or personal financial situation.
Comprehensive
Health coverage must be comprehensive, to include at a minimum: prescribed drugs; mental healthcare (including care coordination); vaccines, dental, vision, hearing, and speech care; rural healthcare; home healthcare; long term care; chronic disease care; end of life/hospice care; preventive medicine; chiropractic and acupuncture; physical and occupational therapy; durable medical equipment and medical supplies; laboratory and imaging services; inpatient and outpatient hospital care; drug abuse rehabilitation; prenatal care; postnatal maternal care, and the full range of women’s reproductive healthcare services.
Mental health parity in healthcare is essential, including funding and accountability for behavioral health services to prevent expensive emergency medical services, behavioral health admissions, involvement with the criminal justice system, fractured families, and suicide attempts and deaths. We support a comprehensive system from prevention to intensive treatment which would be integrated into the healthcare system as a holistic patient care model.
Affordable
We seek a healthcare financing system that is transparent and accountable to the public, promoting fair and efficient funding with strong cost containment measures to ensure long term sustainability and improved benefits.
Payers and providers must be more transparent about medical costs and the amount spent on actual healthcare versus administrative services.
To protect the long-term solvency of Medicare and Medicaid, we oppose privatization efforts as they increase cost and reduce benefits. Rather than subsidizing private Medicare Advantage plans at a far higher cost than traditional Medicare, we support the expansion of traditional Medicare benefits for all.
Government purchasers should be able to negotiate prescription drug prices directly with manufacturers.
We support global budgeting and certificates of need for hospitals to better allocate limited resources efficiently.
Public Health/Pandemic
Both individual and population health are public health issues, and the COVID-19 pandemic has shone a bright light on the importance of developing and implementing good public health policy based on science and current information, including effective communication of verified and peer-reviewed science.
We believe that an investment in public health will curb incidence of dangerous diseases such as heart disease, CTE, diabetes, and HPV. Investing in disease prevention and epidemiology research, strategies, and institutions such as the Center for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health will aid in this effort as well as combatting existing and new pandemics. We call for particular attention to be paid to vulnerable populations such as children, seniors, and people with disability and encourage further research dollars for Colorado institutions.
Care must be paid to guarantee that patient needs are met during periods of stress on the healthcare system. This includes planning and preparing for natural disasters and other healthcare emergencies, maintaining strategic stockpiles, and improving communication between interdependent agencies and other health system stakeholders.
Health policy must be evidence-based and informed by the best available health system data—including comprehensive claims history—to reduce healthcare costs, improve population health, and increase healthcare quality and satisfaction.
Major pharmaceutical companies that profited from the opioid drug market should be required to contribute to any rehabilitation efforts in our communities. We support charging an additional tax to those pharmaceutical companies to be forwarded directly to the states to be used exclusively for opioid addiction and treatment.
We support the use of Advance Practice Nurses as Primary Care Providers to improve access to primary care and improve physician/nurse training and incentives to bring healthcare providers to Colorado and pay them accordingly.
We support policies to address nursing and health professional shortages, including, but not limited to, increased enrollment/certification, increased pay/benefits, and additional training and support.
Nutrition being vital to health, we support policies that eliminate neighborhood food deserts, increase access to local and organic foods, making improved school breakfast and lunch available to all students, and ensure appropriate funding for vital food assistance programs.
Research and Education
Continue federal funding of stem cell research to seek treatments and cures for severe disease as a public health measure.
We support the full legalized use of medical cannabis when prescribed for a patient by a physician at doses needed to alleviate patient conditions. Cannabis should be “descheduled” to advance medical research and utilization. Further, we call for the removal of federal and state bans on research into the medical efficacy of cannabis and psilocybin.
Innovation
New healthcare delivery models, such as telemedicine, that emphasize the provision of continuous, comprehensive, and coordinated care—including standardized Electronic Health Records (EHR) and Health Information Exchange (HIE)—provide for the future innovation in healthcare.
Support community-based alternative long-term care programs that emphasize independence rather than institutionalization and regulate “independent living facilities” to prevent elder abuse or abuse of those with disabilities.
Support statewide coordination of benefits and public health tracking for behavioral and mental health services. 4. We support the state of Colorado being more active in solving the opioid crisis, including providing state funds to treat opiate addiction in all Colorado communities, and promoting alternative pain management approaches.
Interconnection
Since health is essential to life, it is therefore interconnected to every other facet of society and our economy. Expanding access to all and reducing costs is essential to tangible improvements in all other areas of human existence. We cannot fully address other issues such as discrimination and fair wages without also taking care of essential healthcare. Healthcare must be patient-centered, focused on the needs of the patient and all appropriate treatment options.
Public Good
Health coverage as a public good must not impose financial barriers to care on anyone.
Public dollars must not be used to subsidize private health insurers either directly or through premium
assistance. Medicare must not be privatized in whole or part, but rather strengthened through improved
benefits and coverage.
Health policy must seek to improve network adequacy in underserved areas.
Access to healthcare must be available in a timely manner, and not artificially restricted or limited by prior
authorizations, narrow networks, or patient financial status.
Patients Over Profit
As appropriate healthcare is necessary for life, the health financing system should be held in the public trust with dedicated funds use to pay efficiently for healthcare services for residents of Colorado and minimize administrative overhead and profiteering.
Healthcare delivery must be based on patient need without non-medical gatekeeping such as prior authorizations or off-label use restrictions.
Healthcare delivery should be based on medical triage, rather than the ability of the patient to pay or their purported "quality of life.”.
Universal healthcare must be comprehensive in financing, without additional medical premiums and/or claims being paid through third parties like automobile insurance or workers’ compensation.
Patient Freedom
Restore medical decision-making to the patient/provider relationship, unimpacted by insurers, employers, or personal finances. Support and invest in healthcare providers and support staff by prioritizing workers above profits.
Colorado residents must have full choice of providers, facilities, treatments, and continuity of care options.
Patient protection must address anti-discrimination in both coverage and care including, but not limited to,
reproductive rights, transgender and non-binary care, personal genetic information, end-of-life care options, patient/provider relationships, and employment protections.
Reproductive Rights
Colorado guarantees a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy including a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay. We oppose any effort to weaken or undermine that right, including limiting funding of essential female reproductive health services. It is important to continue to offer education and family planning services, which have been effective in reducing abortion rates in Colorado.
Significantly reduce the need for abortion by eliminating financial and access barriers to contraceptive service and pre- and post-natal care, providing comprehensive reproductive education, and funding nutrition and affordable childcare.