By Courtney Law After 2 1/2 years as the law of the land, Obamacare has benefited millions of Americans and will benefit millions more as the law becomes fully implemented. The idea behind the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is that no Americans should have to go into debt because they need health care. President Obama’s health care law expands access to the care Americans need and lowers its cost. The heart of the law is to hold insurance companies accountable by prohibiting them from cutting off coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. For years,…
Category: Opinion - Part 8
By Bob Semro The closest real-world example to the Affordable Care Act is the health reform plan implemented in Massachusetts in 2006. Even though the ACA has a 50-state focus, the plans are very much alike. To get an idea of how the ACA might work, it’s useful to look at the Massachusetts experiment. First, an important distinction: The Massachusetts reform plan is less dependent upon taxes and fees than the ACA. This is largely because federal funding has paid for about 64 percent of the cost of the plan, with the state absorbing 18 percent and hospitals and providers…
By Linda Gorman The Obama Administration’s health law assumes that U.S. health care system problems occur because patients and providers have too much freedom. In contrast, Gov. Romney’s proposed reforms recognize that 70 years of regulatory accretion has compromised the ability of the system to adjust to dramatic demographic, economic and technological change. In short, the problem is too much of the wrong kind of regulation rather than too little. Gov. Romney says that he would increase choice and competition, reduce wasteful spending by equalizing the tax treatment of individually-purchased and employer-provided health plans, and rescue Medicare by replacing the…
By Gena Akers It’s a fact: The decisions you make in your personal life about diet and exercise have a dramatic impact on whether you can get healthy and stay healthy, and what your health care will cost. But beyond these personal health choices, there is broad agreement that one underlying cause of the rise in health care costs is how care is paid for. Currently, health care services are generally sold through the fee-for-service model in which providers are paid a predetermined amount for each discrete service they provide to a patient. Rather than rewarding the quality of care…
By Gosia Kung People want to walk when neighborhoods are vibrant, when there is something to see and when sidewalks are full of other people and colorful spaces. WalkDenver brought the first Better Block demonstration to Colorado in June. A brief video now showcases the transformation. (Click here to see it.) The project provides great lessons for how the built environment can promote better health. The Better Block Jefferson Park focused on a potentially forgotten commercial district in northwest Denver near Federal Boulevard and West 25th Avenue. Building on the history of the area as an original streetcar suburb, the…
By Kelly Dunkin In recent years, a growing body of evidence strongly suggests that healthy places are conducive to healthier people. For example, a study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine showed that those who reside in neighborhoods where theres access to sidewalks and trails are twice as likely to get adequate physical activity. On the flip side of that coin, an analysis from the National Survey of Childrens Health found the odds of a child being obese or overweight are 20 to 60 percent higher in neighborhoods with no access to sidewalks, parks and recreation centers. Like…
By Michael Elliott Teen marijuana use isincreasingnationwide. Yet according to federal government data collected by theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Colorado is seeing adecreaseinmarijuanauseamongteens. Considering that Colorado is now home to state-licensed medical cannabis businesses, this news may be surprising to opponents who previously claimed with certainty that the regulation of these new businesses would lead to increases in teen marijuana use. The data show that these opponents were wrong, and states may have more control over teen drug use if they strictly regulate the cultivation and sale of medical cannabis. According to the federal government, from 2009…
By James O. Hill Every day we get inundated with information about what to eat, but unfortunately, that information is often confusing and conflicting. Eat a diet high in carbohydrate and low in fat. No wait. Eat a diet low in carbohydrate and high in fat. I dont blame the public for being confused. What is the best diet? You may be surprised to know that the best diet for you depends on whether you are an athlete or a couch potato. Being physically active keeps your metabolism working optimally and affects the way your body uses food for fuel….
By Linda Gorman The selection of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romneys running mate holds out hope that people in public life are finally beginning to appreciate the fact that market-oriented health care reforms offer the best potential for finally giving elderly Americans the ability to get better medical care at a lower cost. They do this by giving people an incentive to use health care more wisely. Individuals and their physicians know more about the health care that they need and what adds value to it than any number of officials in Washington, D.C., and various state capitols workingon value-based…
By Ashley Mayo With all of the politics surrounding the passage and implementation of the Affordable Care Act, its easy to lose sight of the ways the law is fundamentally improving health care in Colorado and across America. In our state alone, 291,000 children with pre-existing conditions can no longer be denied coverage, 50,000 young adults have gained insurance by staying on their parents plans, and over 200,000 residents will receive rebate checks from insurers who failed to meet the 80/20 rule. On Aug. 1, Obamacare brings yet another historic reform: insurance companies must cover preventive services for women without…