Health Care
No insurance companies will pull out of Colorado health exchange in 2018, state says
DENVER – All of the insurance companies operating on Colorado’s health exchange will be back next year, quelling fears that 14 western Colorado counties would be left without insurers and that market competition would be further stymied in the state.
“The carriers that offered plans on the exchange this year filed plans to do so next year,” Rebecca Laurie, communications director for the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies confirmed to Denver7 Wednesday. Continue reading
Full transcript: Blair Miller interview with Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., on Senate health care bill 06/21/2017
FULL TRANSCRIPT (Link to story here)
INTERVIEW: DENVER7’S BLAIR MILLER AND SEN. CORY GARDNER (R-CO)
SUBJECT: SENATE HEALTH CARE BILL AND OTTO WARMBIER
DATE: JUNE 21, 2017 10 A.M. MT Continue reading
Despite being part of Senate health care work groups, Colorado’s Cory Gardner still hasn’t seen bill
DENVER – U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, who is one of a handful of Senate Republicans working in small groups to craft the Senate’s version of the American Health Care Act, said Wednesday he has still not seen a text version of the bill just a week before the full chamber is set to vote on it. Continue reading
Hickenlooper: ‘Kind of crazy’ that Senate Republicans are crafting health care bill in secret
DENVER – Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper joined Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich on CNN Monday night to argue that the secretive health care legislation being crafted by a handful of Senate Republicans would be better off with input from both sides of the aisle and from the governors who will have to implement any new health care system in their respective states.
“I’ve never had a good idea in my life that the moment I started talking about it with staff or people around me, that it didn’t suddenly get better,” Hickenlooper told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “And to think that a small number of one party is going to come up with the right solutions is kind of crazy.”
Governors from both sides slam House GOP health care bill Governors @JohnKasich and @hickforco join @andersoncooper https://t.co/hQlQzhohIg
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) June 20, 2017
Hickenlooper and Kasich were among a group of seven bipartisan governors who sent a letter to the U.S. Senate’s majority and minority leaders Friday criticizing the House-passed version of the American Health Care Act—the bill Republicans aim use to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.
The governors said in the letter that the House-passed version of the bill “calls into question coverage for the vulnerable and fails to provide the necessary resources to ensure that no one is left out, while shifting significant costs to the states” and that provisions in the bill involving hundreds of billions in Medicaid cuts were “particularly problematic.”
In their interview with Cooper Monday, both Hickenlooper and Kasich criticized Republicans who have kept the crafting of the Senate’s bill secret from even some of their Republican colleagues.
Cooper asked Kasich if he felt, as a Republican, that the Senate secrecy, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, was something he was supportive of.
“No, you think I’m going to say yes, Anderson?” Kasich quipped. “Of course it’s not. I mean they’ve got to let people know what they’re doing. This is like 1/6 of the U.S. economy. They have to do an analysis of this bill and know how many people it affects and how much it costs.”
Reach out to Senate Democrats,” Kasich continued. “Work this thing together. If you don’t, it’s not sustainable and the next administration is going to overturn this, and we never get to the issue of what’s driving up health care costs.”
Hickenlooper said that he and Kasich had been discussing the health care bills, and figured they only disagreed on about 5 percent of the issues.
“We could find compromises on almost everything,” he said.
Hickenlooper also added to Kasich’s call for Republicans, like Colorado’s Republican senator, Cory Gardner, to reach across party lines.
He also suggested that the governors should be more involved in the process, as they will be the ones who actually have to figure out how their states will put in place any changes to the nation’s health care system.
“Not only should Republican senators reach out to Democratic senators, but I would volunteer there are a bunch of governors, who actually have to implement what they come up with, who could give some substantive and meaningful suggestions on how to control costs and how not to have to roll back coverage,” Hickenlooper said.
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said Tuesday that McConnell was writing the bill, and that the ongoing working committees Republicans like Gardner have pointed to as crafting the bill weren’t having as much input.
“We can say the budget committee, we can say the health committee, but McConnell is writing the bill.”
Three Democratic senators went on a quest Tuesday morning to find a copy of the secretive bill, paying a visit to the Congressional Budget Office, but coming up empty.
The Republican senators crafting the bill are expected to send it to the CBO to score this week, and McConnell has said he would like a vote on the new bill before the July 4 recess, and possibly as soon as next week.
But McConnell and other Republicans have been widely panned as hypocrites because of their secrecy.
McConnell complained about the process in passing the Affordable Care Act, which had more than three weeks of total floor time and discussion over the months it was put together in open session, in both 2009 and 2010.
“The real bill will soon be cobbled together in a secret conference room somewhere in the Capitol by a handful of Democratic senators,” he said in 2009, before saying just months later that Americans were “tired of giant bills negotiated in secret, then jammed through on a party-line vote in the middle of the night.”
Gardner, who is reportedly one of the 13 senators crafting the Senate version of the bill, hasn’t addressed the transparency concerns despite sharing those same concerns just four months ago.
In February, Gardner himself said, “It’s important to me that this debate be open and that the American people see what’s happening and taking place,” according to a transcript from HuffPost. “I think as this committee hearings and legislation is being drafted, it’s not going to be something behind closed doors. Everybody is going to be a part of it.”
Gardner says he will “continue working with my Senate colleagues on legislation that strengthens Medicaid, protects people with pre-existing conditions, and allows Coloradans to have access to more affordable insurance plans.”
But even some of his Republican Senate colleagues were starting to share the same transparency concerns Gardner and others have been derided over in recent weeks.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., lamented that no one had seen the Senate’s version possibly less than 2 weeks before a vote.
“We used to complain like hell when the Democrats ran the Affordable Care Act. Now we’re doing the same thing,” McCain told NBC News.
MCCAIN: “We used to complain like hell when the democrats ran the Affordable Care Act, now we’re doing the same thing.” https://t.co/wEONV4HNqw
— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) June 20, 2017
Sen. John Cornyn said Tuesday that Democrats would get to see the bill as soon as Republicans saw it, and McConnell said early Tuesday afternoon he believes a “discussion draft” of the Senate’s bill would be released on Thursday.
Health insurance rate deadline for Colorado hits as Hickenlooper, DeGette talk health care Monday
DENVER – Health care is slated for a big day in Colorado Monday, as several Democrats are holding high-profile events on the same day that insurance companies are supposed to submit their rate hike proposals to the state’s insurance division.
Gov. John Hickenlooper will join Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 at 6 p.m. Mountain Time Monday to extrapolate on a letter they and a bipartisan committee of governors sent to the U.S. Senate Friday asking for better protections in the Senate’s version of the American Health Care Act.
The Friday letter came from governors from both sides of the aisle in states that opted to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
The governors say that the House-passed version of the bill “calls into question coverage for the vulnerable and fails to provide the necessary resources to ensure that no one is left out, while shifting significant costs to the states.”
The governors wrote that the provisions in the bill involving Medicaid were “particularly problematic.”
They said they were ready to work with senators “to develop a proposal that is fiscally sound and provides quality, affordable coverage for our most vulnerable citizens.”
The letter asks that Congress focus on “improving” the private health insurance system in the U.S., and says that the House version of the bill fails to protect “millions of Americans, including many who are dealing with mental illness, chronic health problems, and drug addiction.”
Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., had some strong words for his Republican colleagues Monday, who have been accused of keeping all details of the Senate’s health care bill secret — even from the Republicans not working on the bill.
Sen. Cory Gardner (R) has drawn criticism for being one of the 13 Republican senators reportedly developing the bill in private months after he called for transparency in the process to reform health care in the U.S.
“[Senate Republicans] are so ashamed of health care bill, they won’t even share it with GOP colleagues–much less Dems or American [people],” Bennet tweeted, following up with a hashtag: #NoHearingNoVote.
Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., brought further light to some of those concerns Monday morning when she hosted a news conference with providers, families and young people who might be affected by the potential cuts to Medicaid.
Though the Senate is reportedly working on a version of the AHCA that differs from the House-passed version, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says the House bill would cut more than $800 billion in Medicaid funding over the next decade, something that has caused concern and pause to Democrats, health care groups and groups serving low-income families and people with disabilities.
Estimates have shown that more than 400,000 people in Colorado added Medicaid coverage under the ACA’s expansion, and that nearly 1.3 million total Coloradans rely on Medicaid coverage.
DeGette said Monday that the AHCA was an “assault on our health care” and said it was time for lawmakers “to do the right thing for our kids.”
Monday is also a big day for Colorado’s insurance market, as it is the last day for insurance companies operating in the state to file their rate requests with the Colorado Division of Insurance.
Those filings could have huge ramifications in Colorado. Depending on the rate hike requests, and if Anthem decides to stay in Colorado, the coverage for people in more than a dozen Colorado counties could be up in the air.
But the Division of Insurance tells Denver7 that the requests will have to be analyzed and will likely not be publicly available until mid-July.
In a weekend story, The Denver Post reported that Kaiser Permanente was the only Colorado health care provider that explicitly committed to selling plans next year on the state health exchange, Connect for Health Colorado.
Spokespersons for Cigna and Anthem would only say they were eyeing the market conditions in the state.
Two of the seven companies operating on the state exchange, Colorado Choice Health Plans and Rocky Mountain Health Plans, did not respond to The Post’s requests for comment.
After the rate requests are made public, they will be open for public comment into August before the state decides whether to approve the new rates or to deny them.
The Senate continues to craft a bill through various committee meetings with Republicans and the president, though most senators admit they have yet to see a text of the bill.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has floated the idea of trying to vote on the Senate’s version of the bill before the July 4 recess.
Democratic senators are also expected to try and hold the Senate floor Monday night to open up the debate on the health care bill. It’s unknown at this time if Sen. Michael Bennet will join them.
Gardner reneges on transparency concerns as Colo. Dems, bipartisan governors call for AHCA changes
DENVER – Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper on Friday joined several other Republican and Democratic governors in criticizing the House-passed version of the American Health Care Act, saying it does not adequately protect millions of Americans and needs fixing.
Hickenlooper, a Democrat, joined Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D), Massachusetts Gov. Charles Baker (R), Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (R), Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) and Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) in signing the letter criticizing the House version of the bill. Continue reading
Top science journal takes issue with Justice Dept. heads’ ideas on marijuana and health
DENVER – The country’s oldest monthly magazine, Scientific American, slammed the Justice Department’s top two officials for their recent comments on marijuana in a column published Wednesday.
First, Massroots.com on Monday reported that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had sent a letter to congressional leaders asking them to help him undo the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, which stopped the DOJ from using federal money to prosecute people inside states with legal medical marijuana programs.
“I believe it would be unwise for Congress to restrict the discretion of the Department to fund particular prosecutions, particularly in the midst of an historic drug epidemic and potentially long-term uptick in violent crime,” Sessions wrote in the letter. “The Department must be in a position to use all laws available to combat the transnational drug organizations and dangerous drug traffickers who threaten American lives.”
The letter went on to ask lawmakers to include language in the next fiscal year’s budget that says marijuana can lead to “significant negative health effects.”
Sessions has left many wondering what the Justice Department will do with states’ medical and recreational marijuana programs, as he has made veiled statements in the past few months. As a congressman, he became well-known in marijuana advocacy circles for his declaration that “good people don’t smoke marijuana.”
He at one point compared medical marijuana users to opioid users, and has batted down any scientific studies that say medical marijuana may greatly reduce opioid use among abusers trying to get clean.
But it’s unclear if Sessions’ request will hold any water with lawmakers, who have passed the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment in each fiscal year’s budget since it was first introduced. A review of marijuana laws is set to be completed by July, according to Massroots.
And the 2013 Cole Memo from the Justice Department specifically implemented guidelines for how states could avoid interference from federal agents and prosecutors—something Sessions has said was “valuable.”
But on Tuesday, Sessions’ deputy, Rosenstein, told both the House and Senate’s appropriations committees that the Justice Department would continue to keep marijuana as a Schedule I drug—the classification used for the most dangerous drugs.
“It’s illegal, and that is the federal policy with regards to marijuana,” Rosenstein said.
But he also noted that the Cole Memo is in effect, which he called it a “policy which is an effort to balance the conflicting interests with regard to marijuana.”
He also said, like Sessions has in the past, said that “scientists have found that there’s no accepted medical use for” marijuana—a notion that Scientific American shredded in its Wednesday column.
“This epidemic is one of addiction and overdose deaths fueled by opioids—heroin, fentanyl and prescription painkillers—not marijuana,” Scientific American’s Dina Fine Maron wrote. “In fact, places where the U.S. has legalized medical marijuana have lower rates of opioid deaths.”
The author then went on to note several scientific, peer-reviewed studies that seem to contradict both Sessions’ and Rosenstein’s stances.
One of studies was done by University of Michigan researchers and published last year. It found that chronic pain sufferers who used cannabis saw a 64 percent drop in opioid use.
Another study, from the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that yearly overdose deaths involving opioids were close to 25 percent lower in states with medical marijuana programs.
The column also noted that dependency for marijuana users was far lower than users of opioids, tobacco, alcohol and cocaine, and that “it is virtually impossible to lethally overdose on marijuana,” citing the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and Attorney General Cynthia Coffman have both been active in finding out how the feds may deal with marijuana under the new administration.
Hickenlooper, along with governors of other states with legal marijuana programs, sent a letter to the Treasury and Justice departments in April asking Sessions and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to “engage” them directly before changing any regulations on the federal level.
Hickenlooper also earlier this year said he believed marijuana was a states’ rights issue and that state sovereignty should be respected.
Coffman personally invited Sessions and his staff to come visit Colorado to see its program first-hand, but the Justice Department has so far not made good on her request.
After years-long fight, Colorado approves medical marijuana treatment for PTSD
DENVER – Coloradans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) will now be able to treat their conditions with doctor-approved medical marijuana, bringing a close to a years-long fight.
Gov. John Hickenlooper signed Senate Bill 17 Monday, which will allow physicians, after consultation and a medical background review, to prescribe patients suffering from doctor-diagnosed PTSD with medical marijuana treatments. Continue reading
Colorado governor signs bill allowing women to get 12-month birth control prescriptions
DENVER – Colorado women will now be able to get a year’s supply of birth control all at once after Gov. John Hickenlooper signed House Bill 1186 Monday.
The bill passed through Colorado’s Legislature with bipartisan support. Its supporters say the new law will be a boon to women since it will mean they’ll have to make fewer trips to the pharmacy and will be less likely to disrupt their prescription cycle.
Hickenlooper also praised the bill as a win for women in rural Colorado who may have to drive a long distance to their nearest pharmacy or to get their prescriptions renewed.
Under previous rules, women were only able to get one- or three-month prescriptions.
The bill’s authors pointed to a 2011 National Institutes of Health study that showed unintended pregnancies fell by one-third in places that allowed 12-month prescriptions.
“Women in rural Colorado will see great benefits from this bill. They will be able to access the birth control they rely on, exactly when they need it. This means more time left in their busy days and less likelihood of unintended pregnancies,” said Sen. Kerry Donovan, D-Gunnison.
The Republican co-sponsors of the bill, Rep. Lois Landgraf and Sen. Don Coram, said the bill’s aim of reducing unintended pregnancies was “common sense.”
“Nine out of ten women in this country use birth control at some point in their lives. This bill breaks down a barrier to care that will have an incredible impact on women’s lives,” said Sarah Taylor-Nanista, Executive Director of Planned Parenthood Votes Colorado.
Supporters of the bill wore pink to its signing at the state Capitol Monday.
CBO: GOP’s AHCA leaves 23M fewer insured; dangerous risk for those with preexisting conditions
WASHINGTON – The House-passed GOP health care bill would leave 23 million fewer people insured by 2026 than would have been under Obamacare, and costs could soar for older Americans and people with pre-existing medical conditions in some states, according to new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released Wednesday.
House Republicans forced a vote on the revised American Health Care Act late last month before the CBO could re-score the bill with its added amendments. It passed by a 217-213 vote. Continue reading