To health care reform rally, Ritter's speech like a cold shower

More than 100 gathered on the Capitol steps today with signs that called for action and big changes, but Gov. Bill Ritter told the crowd that health care reform in Colorado won't happen quickly.

Ritter has been trying to lower expectations of major health care reform this year, saying there will not be a tax increase for health care before voters this year and that it makes sense to see what a new president will propose. Ritter in 2007 said he wanted all Coloradans to have some form of basic health care by 2010, and Republican critics now say he's backpedaling.

Ritter has introduced a $25 million "Building Blocks" plan this year that would expand eligibility of the state's health insurance plan for children and increase Medicaid fees paid to doctors.

More than 100 gathered today for a rally on the Capitol steps for a "Health Care Day of Action." Signs read, "Health Care for All Coloradans" and "The only universal health care = single payer."

Regina Hathorne, a 55-year-old cancer survivor from Boulder, was among those who spoke. She said it takes more than half her monthly income to afford supplemental insurance to cover expensive cancer treatments. But she counts herself among the lucky, since she at least has insurance.

Like a number of those who came to the Capitol for the health care rally, she supported a single-payer universal health care system. Hathorne, though, said she understood major changes wouldn't happen quickly.

"There is no easy solution to this problem," she said.

Ritter told the crowd that issues of cost, quality and transparency would have to be addressed first before asking voters for more money. He said his incremental "building blocks" approach was the first step toward health care for all Coloradans.

"There's a lot of people in this audience, I know, that would prefer that we do something else, that we go with the single payer system and that we go in November," Ritter said, prompting cheers from universal health care supporters.

"I understand that emotion, but I believe that the way we need to work in this state is a building blocks approach that looks at adding coverage, that addresses the issue of cost and quality and that at the end of the day, we get to the shared vision we have," the governor said.

"We may get there through a national plan, we may get there through a state plan, but we'll work every day to work toward that vision that you and I share."

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