By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Minnesota went for humor. Its ads promoting the states new health exchange show a klutzy Paul Bunyan, crashing while water skiing, nailing his thigh with an axe and tumbling off his roof. The tag line: Minnesota: Land of 10,000 reasons to get health insurance. (Click here to see the water skiing ad.) Oregon could have spoofed the hilarity of Portlandia, but instead, went oddly locavore and featured Oregon musicians in ads critics have panned as trippy. Cover Oregons tag line: Long Live Oregonians. (Click here to see Live Long in Oregon). California focuses on its beautiful…
Category: Featured - Part 4
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon GLENWOOD SPRINGS The young couple faced a tough choice: have their first baby in their hometown in Colorados priciest mountain resort area or travel instead to Mexico City. Because the 23-year-old woman was uninsured and an undocumented immigrant during her pregnancy, the birth in Colorado would have cost the couple thousands of dollars out of pocket. The womans 27-year-old husband is a U.S. citizen who grew up in Illinois, but works in Glenwood Springs, the bustling city where many service workers live about 40 miles down valley from ritzy Aspen. He gets insurance through his job,…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon A new health insurance company that is offering some of the lowest prices for health coverage on Colorados new exchange is now the first to decide that it will cover transgender care. Colorado HealthOP, a new nonprofit member-owned health cooperative formed with federal grants under Obamacare, has vowed that it will not discriminate against any groups. Currently most plans sold in Colorado and around the country specifically bar medical care for transgender people. That means most health carriers wont pay for hormone treatments or gender reassignment surgeries. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has strengthened gay…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon When new Connect for Health Colorado ads launch this fall, Spanish speakers will hear a different message from other potential customers. The call to action will be Come and learn rather than Come and buy, the message that will bombard most other customers. Thats because many Spanish-speaking immigrants dont even ponder buying health insurance since they think its out of reach financially, according to a consultant who is advising Connect for Health. Spanish speakers have the perception that health insurance is not an option for them so they are not looking for health insurance, Melissa Burkhart,…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Twenty-two days before the slated opening of Colorados new health exchange, the project manager issued yet another red light warning, signaling that data-sharing with Colorados Medicaid systems may not work by Oct. 1 and that Connect for Health Colorado managers might have to shift to contingency plans. On top of troubles meshing with the states Medicaid systems, managers at Connect for Health Colorado are contending with IT snafus from the federal government. Managers warned Colorado board members on Monday that the Social Security Administrations data system likely will be offline for four hours every night from…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon COLORADO SPRINGS Obamacare moved one step closer to becoming reality in Colorado this week. Consumers can now talk with live customer service agents if they want to learn about options to get tax credits and buy health insurance through Colorados new health exchange. The number is: 1-855-PLANS-4-YOU (1-855-752-6749). Connect for Health Coloradoofficially opened its call center this week and dozens of agents are now standing by in a refurbished warehouse where calls started flowing in on Tuesday. Consumers cant sign up for health plans yet. Nor can they determine exactly how much theyll get if they…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon While politicians continue to argue over the fate of Obamacare, consumers are deeply confused about what reform may mean to them and how they can find help. A new tool aimed at delivering answers debuted in Colorado this week: the Blue Guide from the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative. Its mobile. It offers statewide information. And if you tell the website or app where you are, it will use geolocation to instantly show you nearby clinics, mental health centers or assistance sites where you can sign up for health insurance once Colorados new health exchange, Connect for…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Squirrels and software snafus have brought down NASDAQ over the years. Last weeks debilitating three-hour crash of the financial exchange appears to have been triggered by a software glitch, proving that even long-established networks can be vulnerable to catastrophe. In Colorado, an exchange of a different sort Connect for Health Colorado is bracing for different disasters: blizzards, floods and severed data lines. But the most likely potential problems center on connections with Colorados Medicaid computers, insurance industry websites and the federal data hub, which must provide information on tax subsidies to help cut the cost of…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Health insurance premiums climbed just 4 percent this year over last, but employees feel bogged down because theyre paying a bigger share of their health costs, according to a new survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation. This is historically a very moderate increase, but people dont perceive it that waybecause year after year, the share of what they pay has gone up, said Drew Altman, president and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation. People still feel the pain of health care costs and worry about paying their health care bills. Premiums have increased 80 percent since…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Andrea Mahoney was skiing her last run of the day at Breckenridge in January when she heard her knee pop. It sounded bad. The diagnosis she got from her doctor confirmed her hunch. She had torn her ACL and MCL, and had damaged her meniscus. Mahoney had surgery in late February at a physician-owned outpatient center. After extensive pre- and post-surgical physical therapy and a grueling seven months of rehabilitation, shes pleased with her results and now is running again with a brace. Mahoney is eager to get back to her typical athletic routine full of…