Rocky Mountain Voice

Tag: Health Insurance Costs

When caps don’t cap costs
Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

When caps don’t cap costs

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice A familiar promise, a familiar frustration Voters are often told that a policy includes a built-in safeguard — a cap, a limit, a hard stop designed to keep costs under control. In Colorado, that promise came with the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, approved by voters in 1992 as a constitutional amendment limiting how much revenue state and local governments can keep and spend without voter approval. Nationally, it appeared in the Affordable Care Act’s limits on how much of each insurance premium can be kept for administration and profit under the law’s medical loss ratio rules. The two systems regulate very different things. One governs government revenue, the other private insurance markets.  But cr...