By Chris Lindley Most pregnant women across the United States listen to and rely on sound medical advice from their doctors and other health experts when determining how to protect the health of their unborn babies. Dont drink during pregnancy is a message based on evidence that resonates with most expectant mothers and contributes to the health of future generations. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment would like to reinforce that message with a critique of a recent study that suggests moderate drinking during pregnancy is not harmful to young children. On June 20, a Danish research article…
News - Part 28
By Mark Wolf Most maladies are unencumbered by shame and stigma. Yet for many men to acknowledge they are uncomfortable with the way theyre feeling maybe down, irritable, unmotivated, fatigued, feeling as if life might not be worth living, and, yes, maybe there are some issues down there requires a leap most men seem hesitant to take. Men are stubborn. We dont want to talk about our feelings. We are very leery and afraid of being labeled sissies, afraid of looking weak, and a lot of those things apply when youre talking about mental health, said Matt Vogl, deputy director…
By Jim Garcia As the executive director and one of the founders of Clinica Tepeyac, a community health clinic that sees more than its share of uninsured patients, I applaud the Supreme Courts ruling to uphold the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Presidents health care reform law that increases access to care for millions of Americans. Since we opened our doors at Clinica Tepeyac nearly 20 years ago, we committed ourselves to caring for all patients who cross our threshold, the vast majority of whom have no access to health insurance and who are desperately in need of…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Latinos, who are uninsured at disproportionately high rates in Colorado, could gain the most as health reform takes hold. Thats what happened in Massachusetts, which in 2006 became the first state in the nation to require health coverage for all individuals and to implement a health insurance exchange. Massachusetts health reform law became a model for the Affordable Care Act, which the U.S. Supreme Court last month upheld. A lot of Latinos have low-paying jobs and they dont qualify for Medicaid, said Maria Gonzalez, spokeswoman of Health Care for All Massachusetts, a consumer advocacy group that…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Burdened with providing $1.5 billion in care for the uninsured a year, Colorado hospitals support an expansion of Medicaid to help reduce health care costs. As of now, the Medicaid expansion is the best solution we know of to get health insurance for the people who need it most, said Julian Kesner, spokesman for the Colorado Hospital Association. Kesner said the associations financial analysts are calculating how much a failure to expand Medicaid would cost hospitals, but he doesnt have an estimate yet. Hospitals cannot turn away uninsured people who show up sick in emergency rooms….
By Charlie Brennan I-News Network One in eight Coloradans likely will have diabetes by 2030, according to new estimates from the Colorado Health Institute, and the epidemic will cost the state an estimated $8.3 billion a year. Its a known, predicted disaster if we do nothing if we just sit back and watch, said Chris Lindley, director of the Prevention Services Division of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Few Coloradans seem to share Lindleys sense of urgency, however. Polls of the 1,000 Coloradans participating in Gov. John Hickenloopers TBD Colorado initiative have found that proposed remedies for…
By Ben Young and David Cohn The first seven cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) diagnosed in Colorado were discovered in 1982. By the end of 2011, almost 17,000 people in Colorado had been diagnosed with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that causes AIDS, and more than 5,000 had died from complications of the disease. These are not just numbers. They represent people our children, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, partners, friends, neighbors and colleagues. Today, we know more about HIV. Many of these advances over the past 30 years can be linked to Colorados role in…
By Mark Wallace Too often, bedbugs get in the way of delivering cost-effective, efficient, high-quality health care both literally and figuratively. In the literal sense, consider a case of a middle-aged woman Ill call Mary. A frequent visitor to emergency rooms in northern Colorado, Mary brings with her a long list of complex medical problems. She takes multiple prescription medications and suffers from behavioral health issues and chronic pain. Recently, a pilot project implemented by the North Colorado Health Alliance in cooperation with Colorado Access and Rocky Mountain Health Plan sought to determine why people like Mary keep returning to…
By Diane Carman The question before the court in New Mexico is absurdly simple and yet impossibly complex. What is the meaning of assisting suicide? If a terminally-ill patient refuses a ventilator or a feeding tube and the physician yields to that decision, is that assisting suicide? If the patient is in excruciating pain and requests total sedation and no nutrition or fluids, can the doctor be held accountable for his death? What if the patient seeks a prescription from her physician so that when the pain of dying is overwhelming she can seek the ultimate relief on her own?…
By Francis M. Miller Theres a pernicious tendency in politics that the arsonists who start the fire later return to the scene offering to solve the problem. Thats whats happening now with the Republicans and health care. Let me first state that I do not necessarily agree with President Barack Obama and the Democratic Partys set of solutions to deal with the health care crisis. I believe they are laying railroad track to create a system that will be inflationary. It threatens to destroy our economy and we must alter course and devise a hybrid free market solution. You cannot…