Panel recommends insurance requirement for residents.

• Author: Cote, Mike
• Position: HEALTH CARE

A state commission says improving Colorado's healthcare system should include a requirement that all legal residents have a minimum level of insurance.

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Such a mandate, part of the 27-member panel's $1.23 billion package of recommendations, would be feasible if the state:

* Expanded eligibility for public programs.

* Provided sliding-scale subsidies for low-income workers to buy private insurance.

* Required health plans to cover everyone regardless of health status (within certain limits) and

* Enforced the mandate through the income tax system.

Four members of the Blue Ribbon Commission for Health Care Reform outlined highlights of the recommendations at a Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce meeting on Feb. 1, a day after the bipartisan panel presented their findings to state lawmakers.

William Lindsey, chairman of the health-care commission and co-chair of the chamber's health-care committee, said the timing of the report wasn't good since it arrives during an election year.

But he shrugged off a Denver Post headline that said the plan's proposals would likely get shelved. Sen. Bob Hagedorn, D-Aurora, who chairs the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, told the Post "none of the five...