Senate adopts bill to require insurers to cover at least one non‑opioid prescription option

The Colorado Senate on April 17 adopted Senate Bill 6, a measure sponsors said will make at least one clinically appropriate non‑opioid prescription drug available through insurers as an alternative to opioid prescriptions. Sen. Amabile, the bill’s sponsor, framed the measure as a way to expand safer pain‑management options and curb opioid addiction.

Sen. Amabile said the bill “basically says that every health insurance provider has to have at least one non‑opioid pain medication that they offer,” and argued members should act because of the ongoing overdose and addiction crisis. She told colleagues the sponsors had amended the bill “partly to reduce the fiscal note and then also ... to make some of the health insurers happy.”

Supporters — including Sen. Kirkmeyer and Sen. Bright — described SB6 as improving access and removing barriers such as prior authorization that can make non‑opioid therapies harder to obtain. Sen. Bright said the costs upfront could be outweighed by long‑term savings if fewer Coloradans develop opioid addiction.

Opponents pressed the sponsors on whether the bill creates a mandate to cover newly marketed drugs that are often costly. Sen. Mullica, who said she works in emergency medicine, argued the state already has non‑opioid options in practice, naming Toradol, gabapentin and ketamine, and warned that mandating coverage of newer drugs could raise insurance costs. “What this bill is doing is saying these new drugs coming onto the market ... we are going to mandate that when an opioid prescription is offered, that we have to offer this new, more expensive drug,” she said.

Sen. Amabile responded that an actuarial analysis required to move the bill estimated the cost at under $5 per member per year (about $0.46 per member per month), and that the sponsors had carved Medicaid out of the coverage requirement to lower the fiscal impact. “For this less than $5 per member per year price, we can actually address a whole lot of people in our state,” Amabile said, while acknowledging tough budget choices had required narrowing the fiscal exposure.

The Senate debated the measure extensively, including whether parity would favor particular manufacturers if only a few products are available at market entry. Sen. Kirkmeyer said the bill requires parity only where there is “at least one clinically appropriate non‑opioid prescription drug available” for each opioid drug, and disputed that the bill creates a single‑vendor mandate.

After floor debate, the Senate adopted SB6.