By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon As Colorados health exchange managers sprint toward an October 1 launch, a top manager warned board members on Monday that a recent decision to build a new eligibility IT system poses the greatest risk of delay and could undermine the quality of the online health marketplace. Adele Work, who is leading implementation for the exchange, made a presentation about key implementation risks during a technology update for the board. No. 1 on that list of risks is the new decision to divide one planned IT system into two. The report to the board said that IT…
Category: Featured - Part 9
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Wellness and weight loss programs that target adults may come decades too late. Secrets to curbing the obesity epidemic and reversing skyrocketing diabetes rates may be hidden in the womb. Ironically, babies starved of nutrients for a variety of reasons in utero may grow up to have defective metabolic and organ systems that crave calories and can cause obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure. Researchers have found that a striking 25 to 63 percent of adult diabetes, hypertension and coronary heart disease (cases) can be attributed to the effects of low birth weight. (Click here to…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Its not quite time to hang the Mission Accomplished banner, but managers of the long-disastrous Colorado Benefits Management System (CBMS) say they are well on their way to fixing it. While Kristin Russell, Colorados secretary of technology and chief information officer, is barred from overseeing IT at Colorados health exchange, she vowed that CBMS will work and will connect seamlessly with the exchange system by Oct. 1. Thats the target date for the exchange to open to customers. (Click here to read about tech troubles that could hobble the $66 million health exchange system.) We will…
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 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 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…
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…