By Sarah Mapes Recently, the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Coloradans have been a major political issue nationally as well as locally. This legislative session, the passage of Senate Bill 13-011legalized civil unions for same-sex couples in Colorado after many prior attempts. In addition, the Division of Insurance made changes to current regulations to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. As we celebrate LGBT Pride Month in June, there are many more new opportunities for Colorados LGBT community than in years past. However, there is still much work to be done to ensure that LGBT Coloradans have…
Category: Trends In Health Care - Part 6
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Federal health officials have required Colorado to create contingency plans in case the states health exchange cant function as planned by the beginning of October. Documents that Solutions obtained show that Colorado health exchange managers are preparing for three primary problems that could undermine the planned Oct. 1 launch: A federal data hub that does not work and therefore cannot verify income, immigration status or whether people applying for health plans are living behind bars. A recent report from the Government Accounting Office has found that potential problems with the hub could hamper state exchanges. The…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Rate shock. What rate shock? That seems to be the initial reaction both in Colorado and in states like California as rates for new plans proposed under Obamacare begin to emerge. Here in Colorado, while regular folks enjoyed Memorial Day, health policy geeks and insurance actuaries were mining a state website trying to find out how hundreds of proposed rates in Colorado look. The news about Colorado rates has been very slow to emerge because Colorados Division of Insurance (DOI) had a computer snafu that prevented industry insiders and members of the public from easily analyzing…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon The pseudo therapist is the ultimate manly man: part Ron Burgundy, part Dr. Phil, and part Burt Reynolds. Meet Dr. Rich Mahogany, the hilarious, irreverent online doc who uses dark humor to combat the deadly serious topic of male depression and suicide. Dr. M, as his creators affectionately call him, teaches breathing exercises complete with the F-word so you can deal with your SOB boss and that 105-year-old lady doing 7 in the fast lane. His idea of yoga is the seventh-inning stretch. He cleans his desk with a leaf blower, counts a long spell on…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon The pseudo therapist is the ultimate manly man: part Ron Burgundy, part Dr. Phil, and part Burt Reynolds. Meet Dr. Rich Mahogany, the hilarious, irreverent online doc who uses dark humor to combat the deadly serious topic of male depression and suicide. Dr. M, as his creators affectionately call him, teaches breathing exercises complete with the F-word so you can deal with your SOB boss and that 105-year-old lady doing 7 in the fast lane. His idea of yoga is the seventh-inning stretch. He cleans his desk with a leaf blower, counts a long spell on…
By Debra Judy The Colorado Consumer Health Initiative is celebrating the end of the Colorado legislature because the takeaway is Colorado health care consumers win big this session! For all of us, getting the care we need, when we need it isnt too much to ask. So we were delighted that Colorados legislators and Gov. John Hickenlooper really took this idea to heart this year as they helped move toward barrier-free access to quality and affordable health care for all Coloradans. Sponsored by Rep. Beth McCann and Sen. Irene Aguilar, the bill to modernize stop-loss health insurance is an important…
By Phil Kalin For those of us who have been in health care for a while, Medicares recent release of hospital data identifying substantial variation between prices charged and actual payments isnt news. Nor is the fact that charges for similar services by one hospital can be vastly different from those of the one down the road. Health insiders have known for years that the amounts charged by hospitals have little or no relationship to what is actually paid. Making the data public for the first time, however, does give us an opportunity to review Medicare payments alongside amounts being…
By Dr. Anthony Vigil While New Mexico and other states are grappling with the question of whether to allow doctors to write prescriptions for drugs that terminally ill patients can take to commit suicide, countries such as Belgium and The Netherlands are pushing the envelope in distressing ways. For those who claim there is no evidence of a slippery slope in abuse of physician-assisted suicide once implemented, I offer several problems presented by the Belgium and Netherlands experiments. In these countries, it is legal for physicians to directly euthanize patients. For example, within the last 10 years, several patients who…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Despite outrage from some lawmakers who called review of Colorados health exchange a mockery, a bid for an additional $125 million in federal dollars is likely to move forward by next week. I would anticipate that we will sign off on this, said Sen. Irene Aguilar, D-Denver. This (federal) money exists. If we dont take it, were going to have citizens picking up the costs for their premiums. Our goal is to have the most successful exchange in the country and this is part of that. Related: Governor adds deputy to health exchange board Mediator to…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Im blaming Francis Underwood. The soulless snake responsible for all evil in the nations Capitol on the Netflix hit, House of Cards, turned me into a couch potato this winter. Oh, and those Crawley sisters on Downton Abbey also messed up my metabolism. I was late to that party, so my daughter and I binged on three seasons of love, war and class intrigue, galloping from the sinking of the Titanic through World War I to the Roaring Twenties in a matter of weeks. Im a health writer so I try to monitor my wellness in…