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…
Category: Featured - Part 10
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon No doubt you have heard the recent news that the Mediterranean diet can improve your health and save lives. The results published in the New England Journal of Medicinewere so striking that the researchers ended their study early. They concluded that the only ethical choice was to encourage all study participants to eat a diet rich in olive oil, nuts, beans, fish, fruits, vegetables and plenty of wine. New York Times foodie Mark Bittman summed up the findings with a simple prescription: Eat like a Greek. When I read Bittmans advice, I wanted to know more….
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Colorado lawmakers plan to introduce legislation by next week to make it harder for people with mental illnesses to buy guns. The legislation, which does not yet have a bill number, marks the last of several measures that Democrats are sponsoring this year to try and curb gun violence in the wake of the Aurora theater shootings and the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The other bills include measures to limit magazines to 15 rounds, require background checks on all gun transactions, limit guns on campuses and require gun buyers to pay for their own…
By Mary Winter Mass shootings in Colorado, Connecticut and, most recently, in Southern California, where police say an ex-cop gunned down four people, raise questions we cant begin to answer: Did the shooters give warning signs we failed to spot? What caused them to snap? Could earlier mental health interventions or tougher gun laws have prevented the tragedies? And finally: When do we need to lock up mentally ill individuals for our own protection? The subject of forced hospitalization of potentially dangerous mentally ill people known as involuntary commitment has gained currency in the immediate aftermath of the killings. Had…
By Diane Carman The debate over whats to blame for gun violence easy access to guns or lack of access to mental health care ensued in earnest Tuesday night, with intense partisans from both sides in the audience erupting in applause frequently throughout a forum in Denver. Its unlikely that many minds were changed by the time the 90-minute standoff ended in what appeared to be a draw. But the debate highlighted the heated controversy that is being played out across the country as states and the federal government consider gun control bills and mental health care measures in the…
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 Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Spend less on health care and much more on preschool. Thats the prescription that an international expert on health disparities gave Thursday in Denver to help reverse inequities that leave low-income racial and ethnic minorities much sicker and facing shorter life expectancies than wealthier whites. Health care should get less (funding) and education should get more, said Dr. Paula Braveman. Early childhood development should get the lions share. Having a strong social safety net would make health indicators look a lot better. Braveman is director of the Center on Social Disparities in Health at the University…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon FORT COLLINS Roger Mondragon visited the ER 22 times in two years, but still felt lousy and neglected. It was the only place I knew to go, said Mondragon, 22. When Im in pain, Im stressed. Im frustrated and angry. Developmentally delayed and suffering from several ailments including kidney disease, severe back pain, migraines and respiratory problems, Mondragon used to dial an ambulance whenever his anxiety or pain escalated. In a single month, he says he called an ambulance eight times. Born with a fractured disk and severe asthma, Mondragon spent the first few months of…
By Kevin Vaughan I-News Network Lucero Barrios is Latina and a new mother circumstances that place her squarely in a group of people affected by a shocking reality in Colorado: A Hispanic baby born in this state is 63 percent more likely than a white baby to die in the first year of life. And Latinos arent alone the disparity is even more stark for Colorados African Americans, who experience an infant mortality rate three times that of Caucasians. The gap in theinfant mortality rate is just one measurement by which the states largest groups of ethnic and racial minorities…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Colorados health insurance exchange has morphed from a Travelocity-style self-service website to an online interface with in-person navigators slated to help hundreds of thousands of customers choose from an array of complex health plans. The most vexing questions now are if there will be enough navigators and who will pay them to avoid conflicts of interest. New surveys of potential health exchange clients released Monday found customers want simple TurboTax-style guidance, help from people in their communities whom they trust and side-by-side comparisons of complex health plans. Doubts are surfacing, however, about how exchange managers will…