By Vicki Cowart Over the past decade as president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, I have heard countless stories from parents who struggle having the talk with their teens. Through the work of PPRMs Responsible Sex Education Institute, I also hear stories from teachers and principals about wanting more support to equip students with appropriate information about sexual health. And from the many teens our educators speak to on a weekly and daily basis, we know that teens are curious they want real answers and real information about sexual health and whats going on with their…
Category: News - Part 12
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 Bob Semro The expansion of Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act will help thousands of Colorado families who lack insurance. Youve probably heard that. What you might not have heard is that the expansion will greatly benefit a large number of Colorados aging baby boomers. These are low-income residents between the ages of 50 and 64 who may be in great need of health care coverage but often are not be able to afford it. Senate Bill 200, which recently passed in the Colorado Senates Health and Human Services Committee by a bipartisan vote of 5-2, is the…
By Margie Ball Cook, RN, Ph.D. Colorados seniors are benefiting as never before from prescription drugs that are saving and prolonging their lives and uplifting the quality of those lives. And believe it or not, a federal program Medicare Part D has played a pivotal role in that success. Part D saves U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars, stimulates investment in breakthrough pharmaceutical research, and is immensely popular among some 30 million Americans who take advantage of it. Its not often you can say that about any government effort, and Medicares singularly successful Part D program represents a distinct exception. Enacted…
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 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 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…