Following are brief descriptions of legislative bills passed by Colorado’s 2023 General Assembly and signed by Governor Polis that will potentially benefit Colorado’s seniors. Some have already become law while others take effect at a later date. The descriptions in some cases include background and rationales for the bills along with relevant contextual observations.

  • Senate Bill 108 allows local governments to provide temporary property tax relief through tax credits or mill levy reductions. The impetus for the bill is the anticipated soaring of property evaluations due to the rapid rise in property market values in recent years. Because of the “look back” way evaluations are done, the assessed market values now being adopted will not be held down by the modest cooling of house prices due to higher mortgage rates. The bill stipulates that any temporary reduction in property taxes must be annually renewed by the local government.
     
  • House Bill 1126 prohibits consumer reporting agencies in Colorado from including medical debt in credit reports. Sponsors of this bill presented the argument that medical debt is not a valid indicator of a person’s ability to pay or a person’s sense of fiscal responsibility and should not figure into general creditworthiness. The bill also prohibits a debt collector or collection agency, when attempting to collect debt that the debt collector or collection agency knows or should know is medical debt, from obtaining information about a consumer in relation to an attempt to collect medical debt from. In Colorado over 12% of residents are in collection for medical debt with cumulative medical debt totaling $1.3 billion.

  • Senate Bill 93. Speaking of medical debt, this bill caps interest rates at 3% for medical debt, down from the previous 8%. The bill also pauses debt collections when a patient is appealing their coverage; requires debt collectors to verify the total debt owed and provide a payment plan at a patient’s request; and requires healthcare providers, at a patient’s request, to provide a cost estimate for medical services before the services are provided.

  • HB 1120 requires a landlord and residential tenant to participate in mandatory mediation prior to commencing an eviction action if the tenant receives Supplemental Security Income, federal Social Security disability insurance, or cash assistance through the Colorado Works program. Mediation is not required if the tenant did not disclose to the landlord that they receive such cash assistance, or if the landlord has no more than five total rental units.

  • SB 184 restricts a landlord, with certain exceptions, from considering or inquiring about certain information relating to a prospective tenant’s amount of income and credit history. It also prohibits a landlord from requiring a tenant to submit a security deposit in an amount that exceeds the amount of two monthly rent payments under the rental agreement.

  • House Bill 1068 caps additional security deposits renters must pay for pets to no more than $300. The bill also caps additional rent that can be charged for allowing pets to 1% of the monthly rent or $35 per month, whichever is greater. And the bill prohibits insurers from denying a homeowner’s insurance policy based on breed of dog, unless a specific individual dog is known to be dangerous. Many animal shelters report that unaffordable pet-related rental fees are the #1 reason owners, including older persons, have to surrender their pets. Opponents of this bill argued it could backfire with landlords simply refusing to allow pets at all in their properties.

  • House Bill 1195 allows pharmacies to use automated vending machines to dispense prescription medications to patients. The machines—said to be “exceptionally theft-proof” and monitored constantly—could be placed in hospitals, health clinics, and retail pharmacies and would allow patients to pick up their prescriptions outside of normal pharmacy hours, a key benefit for those who work long or untraditional hours. Under the bill patients need to provide their prescription and interact virtually with a pharmacist via a video call on the machine in order to pick up their medication. Medications will be precounted and stocked in the machine. The bill garnered widespread bipartisan support. Such dispensing machines are already is use in a handful of other states.

  • House Bill 1071 allows more medical professionals to prescribe psychotropic pharmaceuticals as a way to shorten the current long waiting periods to obtain drug therapy for individuals dealing with mental health issues. Colorado’s 6 million residents include only about 600 psychiatrists. That’s one for every 10,000 residents. By contrast, the state has 3,000 licensed psychologists. A 2022 national State of Mental Health report ranked Colorado as the worst state in the country for adult mental health. Psychiatrists have more medical training than psychologists, but psychologists at the Ph.D. level are themselves highly educated specialists who understand depression, anxiety, and similar disorders. Existing health care regulations prohibited psychologists from prescribing fairly common FDA-approved drugs, so patients needing such therapy faced long waiting periods to be seen and treated—a particularly problematic circumstance for someone in mental stress. This bill takes pains to ensure safety by requiring doctorate-degreed psychologists to also have a master’s degree in clinical psychopharmacology, pass national psychopharmacology exams, and complete 40 hours of continuing education in psychopharmacology every two years to stay current with standards of care. The bill additionally requires a prescribing psychologist to maintain a collaborative relationship with the healthcare provider who oversees the patient’s general medical care, and requires a prescribing psychologist to disclose to each patient that the psychologist is not a licensed physician.
     
  • Senate Bill 031 creates a multidisciplinary healthcare provider access training program to improve the health care of medically complex, costly, compromised, and vulnerable older Coloradans. Under this bill the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus will develop, implement, and administer the program. It will coordinate and expand geriatric training opportunities for clinical health professions for graduate students enrolled in participating Colorado institutions of higher education across Colorado who are studying to become advanced practice providers, dentists, nurses, occupational therapists, pharmacists, medical doctors and doctors of osteopathy, physical therapists, psychologists, social workers, and speech-language therapists.

  • SB 155 implements the recommendations of the Department of Regulatory Agencies in its 2022 report by extending the regulation of nursing home administrators 5 years, to September 2028, and authorizing the Board of Examiners of Nursing Home Administrators to discipline a licensee for failing to respond to a complaint.

  • SB 144 allows a healthcare provider to prescribe, dispense, or administer a schedule II, III, IV, or V controlled substance to a patient in the course of treatment for a diagnosed condition that causes chronic pain. The bill also addresses dosage protocols, including prohibitions on a healthcare provider tapering dosages or refusing to accept or continue to treat a patient at a prescribed dosage.

  • HB 1002 creates an epinephrine auto-injector (“epi-pen”) affordability program to provide low-cost epinephrine auto-injectors to state residents who are not enrolled in Medicare or Colorado’s Medicaid program, or in a drug coverage program that limits the total amount of cost sharing that must be paid for an epi-pen. Under this bill, an insurer that provides coverage for a prescription epi-pen must limit the cost for a 2-pack of epi-pens to $60 or less.

  • HB 1026. Existing law had previously allowed grandparents or great-grandparents to seek a court order granting them the right to visit grandchildren or great-grandchildren when there is or has been a child custody case or a case concerning the allocation of parental responsibilities relating to that child. This bill allows a court to appoint a child’s legal representative to represent the child’s best interests in a matter seeking to grant grandparents or great-grandparents family time with grandchildren or great-grandchildren. The bill clarifies that in determining the best interests of a child for the purpose of family time, the court shall presume that any parental determination regarding family time is in the best interests of the child. A grandparent or great-grandparent may overcome the presumption upon a showing by clear and convincing evidence that the family time is in the child’s best interests.

  • HB 1284 changes stipulations for property tax deferrals for a person who is at least 65 years old or who is a person called into military service. Existing law had previously specified that to qualify for tax deferrals, the property for which the deferral is claimed could not be income-producing. Now that prohibition won’t apply if the taxpayer claiming the deferral is at least 65 years old, is a person called into military service, or is the surviving spouse of such a taxpayer. Existing law had also previously required that the total value of all liens of mortgages and deeds of trust on the property had to be less than or equal to 90 percent of the actual value of the property. That 90 percent requirement now does not apply if the owner of the property is a person called into military service and has a home loan guaranteed by the Veterans Administration of the United States. (For more details on this tax deferral program, see our AgeWise Colorado article at https://agewisecolorado.org/blog/property-tax-savings-and-deferral-programs-for-coloradans/.)

  • SB 058 prohibits employers from inquiring about a prospective employee’s age, date of birth, and dates of attendance at or date of graduation from an educational institution on an initial employment application. An employer may request an individual to verify compliance with age requirements if they are imposed as a bona fide occupational qualification pertaining to public or occupational safety or due to a federal or state regulation based on a bona fide occupational qualification.

  • SB 196 extends for an additional 5 years the income tax credit for expenses incurred by a qualified individual in retrofitting the individual’s residence to increase its accessibility for persons with disabilities. The bill also extends the credit carry-forward period from 5 to 8 years. (For more details on this income tax credit, see our AgeWise Colorado article at https://agewisecolorado.org/blog/home-modification-tax-credits-for-coloradans-are-underutilized/.)

  • SB 155 implements the recommendations of the Department of Regulatory Agencies by extending the regulation of nursing home administrators 5 years, to September 2028, and authorizing the board of examiners of nursing home administrators to discipline a licensee for failing to respond to a complaint.

  • SB 100 deals with how property is disposed of when a spouse dies. It applies to what is known as “community property” that married couples own and stipulates that upon death of one community property spouse, half of the property belongs to the decedent and the other half to the surviving spouse unless community property spouses partition or reclassify their community property or waive rights under the act. Absent any reclassifying or waiving of rights, the bill creates a rebuttable presumption that all property acquired by a community property spouse is presumed to be community property. (In Colorado marital community property is generally those things that were bought or received during a marriage and normally doesn’t include things that are owned individually by each spouse, such as property owned before marriage, gifts, or inheritance to an individual spouse.)

  • HB 1077 prohibits allowing intimate medical exams on unconscious patients without their prior consent. It stops medical personnel from performing pelvic, prostate, breast and rectal exams without patient consent unless an emergency situation makes it necessary. Surprising to many, medical students in the past often trained via such unconsented exams. Twenty-one states have already outlawed such practices, and the American Medical Association has disavowed it.

  • HB 1218 requires the Department of Public Health and Environment to identify reproductive healthcare services, LGBTQ healthcare services, and end-of-life healthcare services that may be subject to a denial of care in this state and to develop a simple form to be filled out by a healthcare entity (such as a hospital, community clinic, maternity hospital, freestanding emergency department, or rehabilitation hospital) that conveys to patients and to the public information about which healthcare services that, for nonmedical reasons, are not generally available at the facility or are subject to significant restriction at the facility. The form is to be made available as part of the informed consent process prior to initiating a healthcare service.

  • HB 1088 establishes the veterans mental health services program in the Behavioral Health Administration to facilitate access to mental health services for veterans who have exhausted their annual number of sessions with a mental healthcare provider covered by the veteran’s federal Veterans Administration benefits. The program reimburses mental healthcare providers for four mental healthcare sessions per year with an eligible veteran.

  • SB 303. In response to soaring property taxes tied to greatly increased property reassessment values, this bill makes a modest reduction in property taxes and imposes a limit on annual property tax increases for certain local governments. It also requires the Secretary of State to refer a ballot issue known as Proposition HH, to voters in the November 2023 election that asks voters whether property taxes should be reduced by way of retaining excess state revenues, which are normally refunded to taxpayers under the 1992 Taxpayer Bill of Rights (popularly known as TABOR.) Those retained revenues would be used to backfill some of the reduced property tax revenue for local governmental entities. Most of the bill becomes effective only if the voters approve the HH ballot issue. Critics say using such retained revenues to lower increased property taxes just moves money around without taxpayers personally having much net gain, if any. The bill is being challenged as to whether it is constitutional (at the state level), and an opposition campaign has been launched in an effort to defeat Prop HH in November.

For additional details on any of these bills, you can research them at any time by visiting https://leg.colorado.gov/.