Our Work
At the beginning of the legislative session 120 days ago, it looked like Colorado hospitals had been dealt a bad hand. Legislators were gunning at the freestanding emergency rooms several hospital groups have been opening around the Front Range, the lieutenant governor wanted to open hospitals’ finances to public inspection, and worst of all, they were facing a $260 million funding cut through plans to shrink the Hospital Provider Fee.
Coloradans are angry about health care costs, and it’s easy to see why. The cost of care is steadily climbing and everyone wants someone to blame. At the state legislature, insurance companies seem to have taken a lot of that blame.
Today's amendments to the American Health Care Act do nothing to change the most significant part of the bill — a massive rollback of Medicaid.
Give a big hand to Colorado. Our state now boasts the lowest unemployment rate in the nation at 2.6 percent, well below the national average of 4.5 percent. The 40,000 new health care jobs added here since 2008, an impressive 28 percent increase, have played an important role in this achievement.
You don’t have to be an economist to understand that we like to see job growth numbers like these. More jobs mean more income for workers and businesses, which means more spending and investment, which means more income for workers and businesses. A virtuous cycle.
Lunchtime at CHI often finds the office Millennials swapping stories about annoying landlords, messy roommates or frustrating searches for starter homes. But even as we bond over the trials and tribulations of city living, we recognize how lucky we are to be able to afford housing as prices keep heading higher in metro Denver.
Colorado’s lawmakers will not be doing anything more this year to help rural insurance customers pay for their expensive policies or to examine how much money hospitals are making.
What does $149 mean to you? School supplies for your kids? Rockies club seats? Monthly utilities?
If you’re an average Coloradan, it’s what you can expect to spend on prescription drugs every year.
The affordability of prescription drugs is something CHI has written about before. More than 10 cents of every health care dollar spent in the state goes to pharmaceuticals. And these costs are growing every year.
It’s hard to keep up with the news. Some notable health bills are moving quickly, while there seems to be a growing stalemate over other bills as parties try to force action on their priority topics.
The National League West-leading Rockies are off to a great start this season, and a new analysis by the Colorado Health Institute shows they aren’t the state’s only recent success story.
Public health funding is facing big cuts in President Trump’s proposed budget. A new analysis by the Colorado Health Institute finds that the president’s proposals – if approved – could place vital public health funding in Colorado at risk.