Localizing national headlines

Nearly 200 people in Lake County signed up for Bright Health in 2022, according to the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies, and estimates from local health care professionals suggest that nearly half of the area’s insured population has enrolled with the company since 2016, when Bright Health was founded. 

After the withdrawal announcement, many of those policyholders are now scrambling to find another option, even though they agree that Bright Health was a cost-effective and useful alternative to health care  coverage in the High Country, given the company’s low copays and free mental health visits. 

I’m always proud when the Herald publishes reporting like this. It unearths the local impact of a national headline, making the information relevant to our readers – even those who aren’t insured by Bright Health – and offers a better understanding of the story itself. 

It’s one thing to hear about Bright Health’s withdrawal from Colorado, but it’s another to read about your neighbor who has just lost health care as a result. This makes it personal and relatable and we’re more likely to react than if that neighbor hadn’t been involved. 

This type of reporting also offers additional context to the greater conversation of Bright Health’s impact after deciding to withdraw. 

For instance, in certain parts of Colorado with more people, the company’s withdrawal might not be that big of a deal. More health care companies offer coverage in those areas and finding a reasonable alternative is a relatively simple ordeal. 

But in Lake County, where fewer companies offer coverage, many residents are faced with limited alternatives and could find themselves backed into a corner after the new year, stuck with coverage that is probably more expensive and with fewer providers, or without coverage at all. 

The challenge of health care in Lake County is nothing new, as some community leaders stated for the Herald last week, but the withdrawal of Bright Health has certainly brought those issues to the forefront. 

This is the sort of context that’s missing from national headlines about Bright Health. Without them, the impact of the company’s decision is lessened, reduced to mere accounting errors on behalf of leading health care executives that resulted in the downfall of their company, when really the stakes are much higher, involving individuals and families. 

We might think of Leadville and Lake County as closed off from most of what’s out there and totally self-sufficient, and in many ways that’s probably true. But we still rely on entities like Bright Health for a sense of well-being and we’re at the whim of their decisions, unfortunately. 

As long as that’s the case, the local ramifications of those decisions should be made known, and we at the Herald are happy to play that role. 

Patrick Bilow

Herald Editor