With our largest-ever Hot Issues in Health conference now behind us, CHI staff have been mulling over the amazing insights our attendees always offer.
In two breakout sessions last week, I got the chance to present findings from the 2017 Colorado Health Access Survey. Lovingly known as the CHAS, this survey helps us understand where Colorado stands on important health insurance indicators, including coverage and access to care.
With the most recent CHAS data freshly in mind, the conversation among audience members turned to policy. I asked them to express their hopes and predictions for the future — where they think health care policy is going and where they wish it would go.
The results show that these are two different questions with two very different answers.
Participants were asked to look at a health care policy spectrum of more to less government involvement and use a purple sticker to indicate where they want to see the health care policy conversation go in the next few years. Support for single-payer systems and the public option jump out.
Green stickers indicate where participants think the conversation actually will go. Here, the audience indicated that high-risk pools, consumer-driven health plans and other low-government options have the most momentum.
As a member of an institute that values evidence, I must heavily caveat these results by acknowledging that this audience is far from representative of Colorado as a whole. But among people with enough interest in state health policy to spend a day and a half hearing about it, it’s interesting to see the gulf between hope and expectations.
Perhaps this isn’t surprising; the nation is more politically polarized today than it has been for a generation. But under the golden dome, our state legislature has shown its ability to compromise. As we head into the 2018 session, one thing we can all hope for is that we’ll see it again.
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