By Diane Carman The Senate Health and Human Services Committee voted Thursday to support Medicaid expansion in Colorado. And while no one appeared in the four-hour hearing to testify against the bill, SB 200, an exchange between Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, and representatives of the health insurance industry vividly illustrated why objections to expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act are waning in Colorado and across the country. I understand why the business community is trying to grasp onto short-term advantage by grabbing the federal cash, said Lundberg, fuming, but Obamacare is designed to shut the private sector down. I…
Monthly Archives: March 2013 - Part 2
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 Linda Gorman Medicaid expansion would limit access to care for the significant fraction of the currently uninsured who would otherwise be eligible for federal premium subsidies under Obamacare. It raises costs for state taxpayers, increases costs for people who are hospitalized and prevents state insurers from collecting millions of dollars in federal subsidy money. Naturally, the Colorado Hospital Association favors it. The proposed expansion would allow able-bodied working age adults with incomes under 138 percent of the federal poverty level to enroll in Medicaid. A significant fraction of able-bodied adults between 19 and 54 with incomes below 138 percent…
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…
The Education Writers Association awarded second prize in investigative reporting for 2012 to Medical Marijuana and K-12 Schools, a collaboration among Solutions, EdNews Colorado and the Rocky Mountain Investigative News Network. Solutions reporter Katie Kerwin McCrimmon was a lead writer on the project. Winners will be honored at the associations annual conference in Palo Alto in May.
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon The retirees were so deep in the closet in their younger years that no one even talked about closets. Thats because few in their generation ever dared to come out, fearing that acknowledging being gay meant they would lose jobs, be run out of town or face violence. Today, as Colorado lawmakers are legalizing civil unions, President Obama has affirmed gay marriage and even the Boy Scouts are considering revisions to decades of discrimination, many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender seniors remain hidden and, as a result, dont get the health care they need. A 2011…
Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Colorados health exchange board approved administrative fees of 1.4 percent on insurance plans that will be passed on to customers to help fund the exchange. If Colorado lawmakers do not back a proposed measure that aims to divert cash from Colorados high-risk health insurance fund Cover Colorado to the exchange to help cover their costs, those fees could rise to an estimated 3.4 percent. Cover Colorado will no longer exist because the federal Affordable Care Act requires commercial health insurance companies to accept all customers, including those with serious health problems and pre-existing conditions. The high-risk pool…
By Kevin Vaughan and Burt Hubbard I-News Network During the 12-year span between the mass shootings at Columbine and Aurora, Coloradans used guns to kill themselves about four times more frequently than they used them to kill each other, an I-News analysis of death certificates found. The analysis, which covered the years 2000 through 2011, also found that white residents disproportionately committed suicides with guns while minorities were disproportionately victims of homicide shootings. In the wake of the July 20 attack at the Century Aurora 16, which left 12 people dead and more than 50 injured, state legislators introduced a…
By Cari Frank An email with the subject line Patients Prefer High Cost Care came through my inbox a few weeks ago. It was spurred by a recent study in Health Affairs revealing that patients would typically select a higher cost service like an MRI over a lower cost CT scan even after being educated on the marginal difference between the results. As a part of CIVHCs Colorado All Payer Claims Database team, Im working to develop publicly available consumer information on cost and quality for health care services. The primary purpose of the patient focused information (planned for release…
By Sam Cole As the gun debate heats up in Colorado, it is victims of domestic violence who could be most affected by its outcome. On Monday, a Senate panel approved a bill that would require domestic violence offenders to relinquish their guns if a restraining order had been filed against them. When an offender has easy access to guns, there is nothing more dangerous for a victim. In a fit of rage or the heat of the moment, a womans life can end in an instant. There are 300 million guns in our country, enough for every man, woman…