As a body, the 100-member General Assembly has paying for highways on its mind, but a subset of high country legislators has the high cost of health insurance atop its priority list.

Kevin Fixler reported in the Summit Daily this week that several pieces of legislation are in the works to address “cost, choice, quality and transparency,” with built-in consumer protections.

“Folks literally can’t pay their insurance premiums and have got to have something immediately,” Rep. Diane Mitsch Bush, a Democrat from Steamboat Springs, told Fixler.

Rep. Millie Hamner. a Democrat from Dillon, predicted. “There is going to be a lot of movement on these issues this session.”

Republican Rep. Bob Rankin on Carbondale, Democratic Sen. Kerry Donovan of Vail and Sen. John Kefalas of Fort Collins also are working on high country health care proposals, according to the Summit County newspaper.

Fixler explained Mitsch Bush’s proposal:

One bill that is in the process of being finalized and should be introduced in next couple weeks will attempt to help on the affordability issue for many mountain community and Eastern Plains families who do not currently qualify for a federal subsidy as part of the Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare.” Those at up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level – approximately $47,500 for an individual and $97,000 for a family of four – are eligible, but the state Rep. Diane Mitsch Bush-sponsored piece of legislation will request that the range be moved up to 500 percent to target those paying more than 15 percent of their annual income toward health insurance.

People on the Western Slope can pay up to 51 percent more for health insurance than those on the Front Range, largely because of less competition outside the urban areas, a study by the Colorado Division of Insurance last year indicated.

Donovan sponsored the legislation that authorized the study on whether a single statewide insurance rating was feasible to lower costs in Western Colorado.Sure, the report found, but it would mean other parts of the state would have to pay more.

Donovan was flabbergasted by the stark contrast in cost, according to a story in August by Charles Ashby of the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.

“Rarely does a gallon of milk cost six times what it does in Denver, and that’s what we’re seeing for some of these health care costs,’ ” Donovan told Ashby. “Things do cost more outside of urban centers, and then you mark that up another degree for resort communities. But should they cost as much more as they do in the health care world? That’s the next question we have to explore.”