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Connect for Health Colorado fails to impress lawmakers

Audit Committee says health-insurance program still has issues to address

DENVER (AP) – Connect for Health Colorado leaders thought they had done enough to address a blistering audit released last December of the state health-insurance marketplace. A legislative committee on Monday said it hadn’t done enough.

The program affiliated with the Affordable Care Act will have to go back before the Legislative Audit Committee within three months to show it’s firmed up its documentation in contracts and expenses.

“We have the same goal in mind,” said Kevin Patterson, the interim CEO for state health-insurance exchange, told the committee. “I have no problem coming back in three months and being responsive to this body.”

Patterson characterized the policies and procedures as evolutionary as the 2-year-old marketplace grows from a startup to a more mature enterprise with a base of institutional knowledge and procedures to govern contracts and payouts.

The audit committee also had expected the program to recoup $412,137 in misapplied payments and grants.

Patterson said part of that money was federal dollars used for unallowed payments. The marketplace replaced the federal money with state funds from program’s budget. Costs also will be recovered from future payments to vendors, he said.

In other cases the cost of administering recovery of misused funds would be more than what could be recouped, said Alan Schmitz, the lawyer who oversees contracts for the insurance program.

In May, a different legislative committee tasked with overseeing the exchange lambasted the competence of the volunteer board overseeing the program. Members of the Legislative Health Benefit Exchange Implementation Review Committee also questioned the exchange board’s makeup, potential conflicts of interest and the high pay for the exchange’s executive staff.



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