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It’s Valentine’s week, and what better way to celebrate the importance of relationships, communication and compromise than with a look into Colorado’s 2018 legislative session?
Let’s look at some early-session stats:
A Report for the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing Conducted by CHI
Update 2/9: The Senate passed a two-year spending bill that includes funding for community health centers and CHP+ before 2 a.m. Friday in a 71 to 28 vote. The House followed suit around 5:30 a.m., voting 240 to 186 in favor, and President Donald Trump signed the bill around 8:40 a.m.
Those were huge sighs of relief you heard across Colorado a couple weeks ago when Congress finally extended Child Health Plan Plus (CHP+) funding for six years.
In the first year terminally ill Coloradans could legally end their lives with the assistance of a prescription drug, Colorado appears to be mirroring the experiences of other states where aid in dying is legal.
In 2017, most of the 69 prescriptions were written for people over the age of 55 struggling with cancer, heart disease or ALS, the degenerative neurological disorder. The vast majority of patients who died after seeking a prescription were white, under hospice care and residents of Front Range cities or suburbs.
The high cost of health care is a big concern for people in Colorado’s mountain counties and on the Western Slope. So why is it so expensive to get health care in these parts of the state?
You’ve probably seen it in the news. Some teens and young adults are eating “Tide Pods” — single-load laundry detergent packets — and posting videos of themselves on social media.
While it’s unclear how the fad got started, the trend is concerning. Tide Pods and other single-load laundry packets are harmful if ingested and potentially toxic. The contents of the pods can cause burns to the mouth, lips and throat, seizures, bleeding of the lungs, heart attacks, coma, and even death, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC).
As a new research analyst at CHI, I have enjoyed the excitement of moving to a new state, buying a new car, finding a new apartment, and of course, starting a new job with new coworkers.
The odds were long. At the start of the fifth open enrollment period for Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces last November, there was every reason to believe that enrollment would fall off a cliff in 2018.
Gov. John Hickenlooper celebrated the achievements of the Affordable Care Act and lamented the crisis of high health care costs. But he did not lay out an agenda to rein in prices.
Medicaid. Work requirements. Two things that have never been combined. Until now. The trump administration's had of Medicaid, Seema Verma, changed all that today.