Executive Director of the Department of Regulatory Affairs, Barbara Kelley is pictured in this 2010 file photo.
Executive Director of the Department of Regulatory Affairs, Barbara Kelley is pictured in this 2010 file photo. (Andy Cross, The Denver Post file)
Ranking Republicans of the state House and Senate Health committees on Monday called for a joint special hearing into actions by Colorado regulators in a dispute over health insurance cancellations with Sen. Mark Udall's office.
The move comes after the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies did not provide information on an impartial panel that cleared Udall staffers of accusations they bullied division of insurance staffers to change a November report noting 250,000 Coloradans would have individual policies cancelled due to the Affordable Care Act.
Republican Sen. Kevin Lundberg of Berthoud and Reps. Janak Joshi of Colorado Springs and Lois Landgraf of Fountain sent a letter to the Democratic chairs of the Health committees. It calls for testimony from leaders of DORA — including executive director Barbara Kelley — the division of insurance and Gov. John Hickenlooper and Udall staffers.
It's a "serious question of whether the Hickenlooper administration lied to or intentionally misled state lawmakers and media outlets about an investigation into the Udall incident," the GOP lawmakers wrote. They add that the incident, "deserves legislative review and the public deserves answers."
The Democrats who chair the committees, Sen. Irene Aguilar of Denver, and Reps. Beth McCann of Denver and Dianne Primavera of Broomfield, would have to agree to such hearings.
In responding to a Colorado Open Records Request by The Denver Post and other news outlets about details of the panel, DORA officials, overseen by Hickenlooper, provided several pages of e-mails between division of insurance staffers and Udall's staff.
Some of those e-mails played a key role in earlier reports from The Post and several news outlets about Udall's staff pressuring the division of insurance to change a report that 250,000 Coloradans would have their insurance policies cancelled due to the rollout of the Affordable Care Act. Other e-mails did not include information about an investigative panel or suggest that an investigation was taking place.
After the media reports earlier this month of the dispute between the two staffs, state Rep. Amy Stephens, R-Monument, who is vying to unseat Udall, a Democrat, in his 2014 re-election bid, called for an investigation.
In stating that DORA had concluded its review on Jan. 14, Kelley, a Hickenlooper appointee, sent a letter to Stephens just days after her request for an investigation.
Kelley said a "neutral and objective panel" had found "no evidence of any intimidation and 'the level of coercion by Sen. Udall and/or his staff' was zero."
But late last week, Kelley wrote to The Post and other media: "For clarification purposes, the Department first conducted a fact-finding review, focused exclusively on DORA (which includes the division of insurance) staff and processes, actions and perceptions during and after the e-mail exchanges in early to mid-November, with Sen. Udall's staff. Having found no evidence of any intimidation or coercion ... there was no need to proceed with any further investigation."
A spokeswoman from DORA last Friday said only that the department "fully complied" with the CORA requests and did not respond to additional inquiries about the panel.
Kurtis Lee: 303-954-1655, klee@denverpost.com or twitter.com/kurtisalee