By Edie Sonn Measuring outcomes in meaningful and consistent ways; giving providers incentives to improve; holding them accountable for their results. Comparing providers against their peers as well as against their own historical trend. Rewarding low-performers who improve, without penalizing high-performers that dont have as far to go. Making sense of a bewildering tangle of expectations and requirements. Thats the landscape of health care accountability, right? Yes, and its also the landscape of school accountability. Every single balancing act described above that lies at the heart of every discussion we have about paying for value in health care echoes the…
Category: Trends In Health Care - Part 7
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Colorados health exchange is supposed to debut in just six months, but having the technology ready by Oct. 1 may be an impossible task. Critical problems threaten the system, ranging from a lack of coordination with the states technology office and historic problems with state IT systems to poor oversight by exchange managers and contractors and the potential for serious conflicts of interest among those charged with creating the complex multi-million dollar exchange system. Among the challenges are: The inability of health exchange managers to work directly with tech experts at Colorados Office of Information Technology…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Colorado is flunking when it comes to childrens health and its time to mount an aggressive turnaround campaign. That was one of the key lessons from the release last week of the annual Colorado Health Report Card. Were not growing our own healthy children. Our child obesity rate remains in the middle of the pack, said Anne Warhover, president and CEO of the Colorado Health Foundation, which releases the report card each spring. Thats where the foundation is really going to emphasize more and more of our work in trying to prevent childhood obesity. It leads…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Health insurance companies in Colorado can no longer discriminate against people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. Colorado is the third state to prohibit discrimination in health coverage. California and Oregon have barred the practice along with the District of Columbia. The federal Affordable Care Act calls for equity in LGBT health care, but very few states have taken action thus far to codify these rights. Colorados Division of Insurance issued a bulletin last week that outlines the new rules. It states that health plans in Colorado can no longer: Charge LGBT people higher rates…
By Gretchen Hammer In 2012, Colorado welcomed roughly 1,800 refugees as new residents of our state. Mirroring national trends, in recent years the majority of refugees who settle in Colorado are Bhutanese, Burmese, from Iraq and Iran, and from African countries including Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia. The path to Colorado is not smooth for many of these individuals and families. Many have spent years living in camps or moving from place to place to escape danger and suffering. By definition, refugees are persons who have fled their home country due to a well-founded fear…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon The percentage of Colorado children whose families live in poverty nearly doubled over the last decade from 10 to 18 percent, marking the steepest increase in the country except for Nevada, according to the 2013 KIDS COUNT report. That meant that an additional 6,000 children sunk into poverty between 2010 and 2011, on top of 113,000 children already subjected to poverty since 2000. We are not where we should be. We are not even close to where we want to be, Gov. John Hickenlooper said Monday when the Colorado Childrens Campaign unveiled the new data at…
By Michael Lott Manier In the wake of the heartbreaking tragedies in Aurora and Newtown, the debate over gun control has taken center stage in Colorado. The legislature is now set to consider an expansion of the ways in which individuals who have received treatment for mental health conditions or substance use disorders (collectively known as behavioral health) can be prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms. The rampage killings that reignited the gun control debate have been inextricably linked in the public consciousness with the issue of mental health. Politicians and gun-rights advocates have focused on the message that the…
By Dr. Tom Gottlieb The recent Time Magazine Special Report by Stephen Brill Why Medical bills Are Killing Us demonstrates a series of narratives that describe problems in our health care system. The article focuses on the cost of health care services. Brill blames cost problems on insurance companies, medical equipment manufacturers, hospitals (both for-profit and nonprofit) and pharmaceutical companies. He says that excess costs by and large are not related to physician and patient behaviors. Brill suggests that real solutions might be related to lowering the age for Medicare eligibility and implementing a single-payer system. He further states that…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Sen. Irene Aguilar, D-Denver, plans to introduce a bill on Friday seeking universal health care in Colorado. Under her plan, employers would pay a 6 percent payroll tax for each worker while employees would pay a 3 percent share. Self-employed people and investors would pay a 9 percent tax on income and capital gains. In exchange for those costs, all Coloradans who have lived in the state for at least one year by the beginning of 2016 would become part of a statewide health care co-op and would get platinum-level health plans, the most generous package…
By Donna Smith It isnt often that I learn a new word in the health care system discussion, but this week I did. Churning. I was at a meeting here in Colorado where I have taken on a new role in advocating and administering for a publicly financed, universal, single-payer system with Health Care for All Colorado.And the definition of churning I learned is a sad commentary on a system that still allows access to care based on inequality of coverage that leaves so many people suffering and tens of thousands dying in America every year. Churning is the policy…