Gov. Bill Ritter and legislative Democrats announced what some termed a “creative” package of proposals Thursday to improve health care in a tough economy — from forcing insurers to cover mammograms to forgiving college debt for nurses.

With the state facing budget deficits into the future, none of the 10 bills nor a governor’s executive order issued Thursday included anything expensive. The governor said it likely would take national reform to cover about 700,000 Coloradans without health insurance.

Still, state leaders said they were unwilling to wait on Washington and would continue passing their own modest health care proposals.

“We cannot remain inactive on health care reform, and we haven’t in this state,” said Ritter, who called it “discouraging” that national health reform has been “bogged down by partisan gridlock.”

The latest state proposals would:

• Prohibit insurance companies from charging women more than men for individual health coverage.

• Provide incentives, using federal funds and private money, to encourage nurses and doctors to work in rural and underserved communities.

• Eliminate administrative duplication in the state Medicaid program and more aggressively attack fraud, a plan they said could save millions of dollars each year.

• Require insurance companies to write policies in “plain English” so consumers know exactly what is covered before purchasing a plan.

• Create an online statewide database that eventually would allow the public to compare physicians’ patient outcomes.

• Require insurers to cover breast-cancer screening.

The governor’s executive order forced the state Medicaid department, the Department of Revenue, the state health department and the governor’s information technology office to share data to electronically verify the citizenship and identity of Medicaid applicants.

“We are not waiting for Washington,” said Rep. Jim Riesberg, a Greeley Democrat and chairman of the House Health and Human Services Committee.

Sen. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broom field, called the Democrats’ proposals “underwhelming.” Mitchell said the state should allow Coloradans to purchase insurance across state lines and create transparency in health care pricing so consumers could call a doctor’s office and find out exactly how much it costs to get treated for an ear infection, for example.

Mitchell said the governor’s package of bills was “hyped up” to seem like health care reform but likely would accomplish little. He is opposed to banning gender-rating in insurance but does support getting tougher on Medicaid fraud.

“There is a lot of money in the health care system, and we need to make sure it’s being spent reasonably and fairly and responsibly,” Mitchell said.

Democrats announced their proposals after the release of the Colorado Health Foundation’s annual report card, in which the state slipped to a D-plus for overall children’s health compared with the rest of the country.

Colorado ranks 45th for children without health insurance — 13.8 percent. The state is 34th for the percentage of kids who participate in “vigorous physical activity” at least four days a week — 64.1 percent, according to 2007 data.

Most disturbing, Ritter said, was that Colorado is now 23rd for its percentage of obese children — 14.2 percent, according to a survey of parents.

“That’s just not tolerable,” he said. “There are kids who are obese in this state who are going to school hungry.”

In better news, overall adult health in Colorado is above average, according to the report card. The state has the lowest number of obese adults and the third-lowest number of adults with high blood pressure, and it ranks third for the number of adults who exercise.

Advocates of health care reform called Ritter’s health agenda a “creative” way to tackle problems in a tough economy.

State leaders predicted Colorado scores for children’s health would improve dramatically as new laws passed in 2007 and 2008 begin to reap results. The legislature in recent years has banned soda in schools and set up “medical homes” so more children receive primary health care by a physician who manages all their health issues. More than 215,000 Colorado children are now in “medical homes.”

Jennifer Brown: 303-954-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com