Our Work
With our largest-ever Hot Issues in Health conference now behind us, CHI staff have been mulling over the amazing insights our attendees always offer.
We are live blogging this year's Hot Issues in Health conference, bringing you the latest from what has become Colorado's leading health policy gathering. There's so much to talk about this year. We're excited to share the big ideas, the conversations, the questions and the concerns. Check back often, beginning tomorrow morning, bright and early!
12:30 a.m. Friday:
Earlier this month, Ohio voters considered a ballot initiative aimed at controlling the escalating spending on prescription drugs. It’s a concern felt in every state, including Colorado, and consumers and policymakers are desperately searching for a solution.
The Ohio proposal would require the state’s government, including its Medicaid agency, to pay no more than what the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) pays for prescription drugs. By federal law, the VA receives a 24 percent discount on drug prices.
They may be poor or live alone. Their sight may be failing, or they may have trouble remembering what day it is. Some will need assisted living; others will spend their golden years in their own homes and neighborhoods.
The stunning growth of Colorado’s 65-plus population is well underway. By 2050 there will be twice as many seniors as there are today, with implications for the state’s economy, infrastructure, workforce, health care and more.
No county will be unaffected by this demographic shift. But not all will be impacted equally.
Between 2012 and early 2017, I was part of a policy team at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that helped to advise then-Secretary Sylvia Burwell on a wide range of health policy topics, including the best available evidence to combat the opioid epidemic.
It was an important task. Drug overdose deaths claimed more than 52,000 lives in the U.S. in 2015 alone, with more than 33,000 from opioids. To put that in perspective, at the peak of the AIDS epidemic in 1995, the disease claimed 51,000 lives.
What’s old is new again. But Twin Peaks and neon accents aren’t the only ‘90s trends enjoying a revival.
Medicaid departments across the country are revisiting managed care as they search for a way to control costs.
Here in Colorado, record-high Medicaid enrollment has some people wondering if this old concept could work for our state, too.
It’s an idea that Colorado has tried in the past and largely abandoned in the wake of legal wrangles.
It’s been more than a month since Congress missed the September 30 deadline to fund the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), leaving health coverage for 75,000 children and pregnant women in Colorado hanging in the balance.
Now the clock is ticking as states spend down their CHIP savings.
A critical moment has arrived for the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
We say that every few months, it seems, but it’s still true. The law survived multiple attempts to repeal it in Congress this year. Now, its fifth open enrollment period is about to begin, amid attempts by the White House to degrade the law.
President Donald Trump today declared opioid abuse a nationwide public health emergency and said his administration will take aggressive steps to address the epidemic’s causes and effects.
“It is time to liberate our communities from this scourge of drug addiction,” he said in a speech at the White House. “I am directing all executive agencies to use every appropriate emergency authority to fight the opioid crisis.”
Last month, the Colorado Health Institute released results from the 2017 Colorado Health Access Survey. The CHAS gives Coloradans data and insights about what’s happening in health care regionally and statewide. This year’s report included some striking figures: We learned that the uninsured rate remained at an all-time low (just 6.5 percent!) and that, for the first time, less than half of Coloradans get health insurance through their employers.