With just one week left for him to sign or veto bills, Gov. Jared Polis is coming under heavy pressure from both business and labor interests to take definitive action on a proposal that would exponentially expand injured workers’ choice of providers for their healing process.
Under terms of a negotiated 2014 law, employers, who cover the full cost of workers’ compensation care, must give employees a choice of four providers — a list that typically is heavily vetted for doctors’ expertise and outcomes. House Bill 1300, however, would change that so that injured workers could choose from any of the state’s nearly 1,200 workers-comp-accredited medical providers, so long as they are located within 75 miles of the employee’s home or workplace.
Sponsoring Rep. Jenny Willford, D-Northglenn, said the bill is about giving workers full control over their care rather than forcing them to choose from a narrow list of providers given to them by their bosses — doctors who may feel incentivized to rush their care. Willford originally had another provision in the bill that would have moved the burden of proof in any dispute regarding provision of medical benefits from the injured worker to the employer, but she removed that when it was clear she didn’t have support to pass it.
For Pinnacol Assurance, Colorado’s largest workers’ compensation insurer, and for business groups, however, HB 1300 is a dangerous effort that could add costs and recovery time to a system that, by all measurable standards, is working very well now. The 2014 law doubled the number of physician choices that employers were required to provide, and less than 0.5% of the 35,000 workers that Pinnacol deals with annually request a provider change, signaling there are no great issues plaguing the system now, they say.
Complexities surround bill on injured workers
Gov. Jared Polis (right) confers with Mark Ferrandino, director of the governor’s Office of State Planning and Budgeting, during a break in the JBC hearing on his budget proposal, which included conversion of Pinnacol Assurance, in November.
Polis, whose mantra on healthcare bills the past seven years has been to favor those that decrease costs, has indicated that he’s not a fan of the proposal — a leaning that led sponsors on the session’s final day to push enactment of the bill back from 2026 to 2028. It’s now been 22 days since the session ended, and his lack of action on the bill has stirred questions from both sides of the debate in advance of the June 6 sign/veto deadline.
HB 1300 also is inextricably linked to Polis’ unsuccessful effort during the 2025 session to get the Legislature to convert state-chartered Pinnacol into a fully privatized mutual insurance company — an issue likely to arise again in 2026. Pinnacol conversion, he believes, would generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the state during a time of budget shortfall and would ensure the company’s long-term future by allowing it to expand outside Colorado, which its charter doesn’t now permit.
In that sense, the Democratic governor could use HB 1300 as leverage in negotiations regarding a potential Pinnacol conversion bill, particularly as the Democrats that back HB 1300 been most skeptical of privatizing the company. Unions and their backers worry that if Pinnacol can turn its attention to national expansion — a move the company says is needed as many more Colorado employers hire out-of-state remote workers — the insurer of last resort will concern itself less with worker care.
Labor leaders want “broader systemic overhaul”
A May 20 letter from supporters of HB 1300 stresses that those organizations are committed to working with Polis and other stakeholders “to ensure Pinnacol’s success into the future and to effectuate the broader reform that our system so desperately needs.” Letter signers include the state’s largest unions, a trio of major plaintiffs’ attorneys’ groups, several Hispanic advocacy organizations and liberal policy groups like Local Progress Colorado and Young Invincibles.
But those groups also say that the “broader systemic overhaul” that is needed includes a swath of other proposals opposed by employers in recent years, including removal of the caps on indemnity benefits and overhaul of payment formulas for permanent disability. It’s unclear whether introduction of those proposals in future years also could be used as leverage in getting Democratic support for Pinnacol conversion.
Specifically on HB 1300, backers argue in the letter that giving workers full control in doctor choice will “ensure a strong and effective therapeutic relationship” and will bring Colorado in line with 36 other states that have similar policies. This, in turn, could make treatment more efficient and will not add cost to the system, they write — two points in direct contradiction to the arguments put forth by opponents.
“Ensuring an injured worker’s prompt access to quality medical care should be the goal of all parties to our system, from the insurers and large corporations to the small business owners, injured workers and the attorneys that represent them,” the letter reads. “Signing this bill will go a long way in effectuating that goal.”
Business leaders fear additions of cost, time to system
John O’Donnell is president and CEO of Pinnacol Assurance.
Opponents, however, charge that the bill will have the opposite effect of what proponents describe. Specifically, they wrote in a May 12 letter to Polis, HB 1300 will delay workers from getting critically expedient care and in doing so, will lengthen recovery time and add costs to the system both from increased medical bills and unfilled positions.
Asking workers who are injured on the job to navigate a 1,200-person provider list while they are in pain and concerned about their futures “is the opposite of prioritizing the well-being of injured workers,” Pinnacol President/CEO John O’Donnell said in a statement. His organization signed the letter along with other insurers, a host of chambers of commerce, five major medical organizations, more than a dozen construction groups and business entities ranging from the Colorado Restaurant Association to Goodwill of Colorado.
Not only will having to choose from a bevy of doctors delay initial care, but the bill extends the timeline to change physicians, which can lead to delays in diagnosis and inconsistency of medical care — all of which will raise the costs of care, the veto-request letter argues. Employers will bear those costs along with additional costs related to the use of out-of-network physicians and the elimination of a state-directed workers’ compensation insurance premium credit given to those employers that provide the list of four options.
Debate on injured workers goes back to 2014
“The business community believes that the 2014 deal strikes an appropriate balance, allowing for flexibility when choosing a doctor while preventing abuse of the system,” reads the request, which accompanied letters from more than 1,000 individual businesses and Pinnacol members. “This legislation introduces unnecessary complexity and costs into a system that currently functions effectively, as evidenced by industry data showing how few injured workers even request physician changes under the current system.”
Polis has shown a willingness to buck both his party and the labor organizations that back Democrats, having already vetoed a proposed overhaul of the Colorado Labor Peace Act that would have gotten rid of a second organizing election now required for union security. He’s vetoed about 10 bills so far this year, including four fresh vetoes on Thursday against proposals that would have required drivers in autonomous commercial vehicles and banned algorithmic price-setting tools for landlords, among other mandates.
But it’s clear the governor is thinking hard about HB 1300 — likely, both about its stand-alone merits and its place in a broader negotiation over the future of the state’s largest workers’ compensation insurer and insurer of last resort. And it’s likely he’ll be hearing more from both proponents and opponents until he makes a final decision.