It's more than just mandated coverage and price controls. Yes, fewer teens are working during the summer. Lastly third-party payer Pre-K and no such thing as a free lunch.
I agree price controls and mandated care are a problem, but I think there's more going on.
Let me start with a quote from the Gazette Op Ed linked below:
"We hear a lot of gobbledygook explanations from so-called experts for Colorado’s fleeing insurers. They are greedy, they tell us, and therefore engage in unwise practices. Sure, they’re engaged in corporate suicide so they can neglect their families. In truth, regardless of weird and ignorant micro explanations, we can blame price controls and unfunded mandates for this rapid abandonment."
Colorado has had a recent string of insurers leaving the small-plan health insurance market (the kind of insurance you buy if you have to buy your own health insurance or if you're a small business). Going by the quote above, you would think that the basis behind it all is entirely the fault of the policies put forth by Polis and his merry band of progressives.
I think I disagree with that idea, though not entirely.
From having read a fair bit on this topic from different sources, I gather that at least some of the problem with more than one insurer has been shaky financials at these companies. I.e. they're not healthy and unhealthy companies tend to fail.
Now, more than one thing can be true at once. A company could be unhealthy and our state's regulatory environment could also be unhealthy. Take someone who's at death's door and put them in a room where they're breathing in dusty air and the walls are covered in filth and see how long they last.
That, I think, is what is going on here. I would bet my lunch that some small companies have started up and or sought opportunities in the small policy market, eventually ending up here in Colorado to try and make a go of it.
Facing a tough environment where the state is requiring a bunch of care that almost guarantees that costs for policies will be high (see the attached screenshot) while at the same time demanding that prices drop, these already shaky companies fold faster than Superman on laundry day.
Left out, too, is who is dumb enough to try and fill the shoes of those that have left. Whatever the reason for the companies leaving, I imagine other insurance companies can't help but look at their competitors and think twice about trying here.
Not good for you if you need this kind of insurance. Yet another example of the government sticking their nose in to help and only making things worse.
Like my four year old's efforts sometimes, their "help" is anything but.
https://denvergazette.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-blame-price-controls-for-fleeing-health-insurers/article_b0b8ef4c-fdf4-59d2-90e7-088f2fe6d9a7.html
Yes Virginia, there really are fewer teens working during the summer.
I'll leave it to you to come up with a reason, but fewer Colorado teens are working.
If you'd had the suspicion that fewer young people were working than in the past, you're right. Turns out it isn't just Colorado either, according to the article linked below, it's a national trend. I took a screenshot of the graph showing Colorado's teen population (in yellow bars) as the background for the percentage of teens in the labor force (the green line) and attached if you want a quick picture.
A Bureau of Labor Statistics report cites expanded educational opportunities as part of the reason. Kids have tougher classes, they are going to college at higher rates,** so the extra time in summer that used to be spent flipping burgers is now spent on school.
I could see it, but I wonder if there's more to the picture too. This is the point at which I tell you that I have struggled mightily to fight off the "these lazy kids these days!" temptation that comes with getting older. Since I won't give in, I'll just say that you're welcome to add any other reasons for this that you'd like.
**As someone who teaches a college math class in the summer can attest, yes, there are a fair number of high schoolers who take my class and sometimes delay working in the summer because of it (though there are plenty who do it in addition to working!).
https://coloradosun.com/2023/06/10/colorado-summer-jobs-teens-work/
The misnomer here is the "free"along with the third-party payer problem.
We must remember that nothing is free. Someone, somewhere has to pay.
And, on top of that, I am concerned for the potential increase in prices caused by government funding.
I took a couple of quotes from the Sun article below to share. I'll leave it to you to read the whole article, but the upshot is that there are some people who would like to add more free (I think personally "subsidized" would be more accurate) kindergarten because it would help them get childcare** during the hours that the parents work but the kids aren't in kindergarten. See screenshot #1.
This is concerning (albeit not terribly surprising). The thing is that nothing is free. See screenshot #2 in red.
Someone, somewhere needs to pay. We've already tapped those filthy, dirty, tertible smokers to pay for the 15 hours we're offering now. Who gets the bill if we expand this? I mean, we're going to eventually run out of socially-unfavorable groups to stick with the bill sooner or later.
On top of that we now that the government has started subsidizing kindergarten, we run into the problem of a third party payer. You've already seen this problem with healthcare. I don't think it's the entire problem, but you'd have to go a long way to convince me that you are the customer for health care while your insurance pays doesn't drive up prices.
If we pay for more and more, more and more people will demand kindergarten and childcare. After all, if it's "free", why not?
That extra demand means higher prices for the government and higher taxes for (someone? all of us?)
**In the interest of fairness here, I need to be clear that calling it childcare is my characterization given what I read in the article. That is the sense I get from reading it. If you read the article you'll note that it's not necessarily framed that way in the article; in fact, the author seems to go to great lengths to avoid calling it childcare using phrases like "quality care in education".
https://coloradosun.com/2023/06/14/cdec-affordable-preschool-government-funding/