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….
Category: News - Part 13
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…
By Linda Gorman New results from Arkansas suggest that Colorado officials who favor Medicaid expansion may be able to negotiate a better deal for both low-income people and state taxpayers. Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe has negotiated an alternative to the standard Medicaid expansion offered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under Obamacare. Health and Human Services has agreed that Arkansas can pay premiums for commercial insurance purchased through the states health insurance exchange using the federal funding that would have gone to expand Medicaid. The program will extend commercial coverage to adults earning up to 138 percent…
By Sofia Griffin High school isnt the place where the worlds or even our own countrys problems are the main topic in the hallways. Sometimes I wonder why my teachers always told me that they were going to prepare me for the outside world, but failed to explain crucial problems in our society. For example, besides my personal struggles with health care, I never had to think about our health care system in high school. Get Healthy SLV has been educating the freshmen health class of the Alamosa High School about access to health issues. Our activities range from lectures…
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…
Colorados community health centers serve one-third of Colorados neediest patients through 17 health systems around the state, providing essential primary care in 57 of Colorados 64 counties. On Tuesday, the groups association, the Colorado Community Health Network, handed out their 2013 Community Health Champion awards. Solutions was honored for covering underserved people and putting a human face on health care. Katie Kerwin McCrimmon, a writer for www.HealthPolicySolutions.org, won the media award. (McCrimmons) in-depth reporting illuminates issues that often receive only limited coverage in other news media. Her writing is thoughtful and informative, said Donald Moore, CEO of the Pueblo Community…
By Dr. Anthony Vigil None of us is competent to make the decision when to end life. We just dont, and never will, have all the data. Since we cannot see into the mind or the heart, we cannot weigh all the factors that may be going into a patients decision to end life. Patients are not obligated to fully disclose everything. We have no idea what is going on in the concious or unconcious of a person during the last moments. When we artificially bring them to the last moment, we are interfering with that process. In the Netherlands,…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Expanding Medicaid to an estimated 275,000 additional people will cost Colorado less than the price of not adding them. That’s the bold prediction from a new study of Medicaid expansion commissioned by the Colorado Health Foundation, which supports expansion, and conducted by seasoned legislative budget analyst Charlie Brown and a team of economists. Brown and his team found that expanding Medicaid would essentially be a stimulus program for Colorado because so many millions of federal dollars would flow into the state to pay for the new patients’ care. Federal taxes will pay 100 percent of the…