Politics
Despite concerns over pre-existing conditions, Rep. Mike Coffman leaning yes on AHCA as vote looms
DENVER – U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman is leaning toward voting for a revived Republican plan to replace Obamacare, but says he wants to see more protection for pre-existing conditions or he’ll vote against sending the bill to the Senate.
President Donald Trump and several other House Republicans have again been trying to shore up votes this week in their ongoing effort to replace the Affordable Care Act.
Wednesday morning, those efforts grew further legs when Republican House members Fred Upton and Billy Long said they had flipped from “no” to “yes” on their plans to vote for the bill after the president accepted an amendment to the bill from Upton the Michigan Republican says will allay concerns over pre-existing condition coverage.
The bill would add $8 billion over five years to fund high-risk pools, according to multiple news outlets who had seen the amendment, which would be added to $130 billion already written into the bill.
The addition of the extra money still may be short of the money needed, according to some Republicans, who say high-risk pools would actually need between $150 and $200 billion.
Moderate and ultra-conservative Republicans, as well as Democrats, have voiced concern over the reinstatement of high-risk pools for pre-existing condition coverage under the AHCA – something Obamacare eliminated.
Last week, Coffman and his team said that the AHCA and MacArthur amendment that was added in recent weeks contained coverage for all pre-existing conditions, something House Speaker Paul Ryan reiterated, as did the president himself.
But some of the writers of Obamacare, as well as some in the health care and retirement industries, have said that even with the MacArthur amendment, people with pre-existing conditions could face not being able to afford coverage because companies and states would make it too expensive.
And though multiple requests for clarification on whether Coffman’s stance was made after the Upton amendment was introduced or before, it appears Coffman is close to supporting the measure as he said he would in March, despite ongoing pledges to protect Coloradans with pre-existing conditions.
“The current bill has a lot of strong elements – giving the states more flexibility is sound public policy…But we need to tighten some protections for those with preexisting conditions,” Coffman said in a back-and-forth statement Wednesday.
While saying there needed to be better protections for people with pre-existing conditions, he said that critics of the AHCA were being “totally disingenuous” about the reality of the bill’s language on them.
“I worry that, under the current language, a small percentage of those with preexisting conditions may not be adequately protected,” he said.
But the biggest sign that he was leaning toward a “yes” vote came with the final on-the-fence portion of Coffman’s statement:
“If House Leadership will work to tighten protections for those with preexisting conditions, I’m a yes on sending this bill to the Senate for further consideration. If not, I’m a no, and we’ll go back to the drawing board.”
Ken Buck, a Colorado Republican who is a member of the conservative Freedom Caucus, will support the bill, according to several whip counts, and other Freedom Caucus members who had been on the fence were moving toward supporting the bill Wednesday, according to reports.
Trump praised Buck for his support of the measure in late March.
Scott Tipton is “leaning yes,” according to a whip count from HuffPost’s Matt Fuller. He has also promised to protect people with pre-existing conditions under the AHCA.
But AARP, the Kaiser Family Foundation and several other national and state organizations have said the AHCA is bad for Americans, particularly those with pre-existing conditions. AARP called the Upton amendment to add $8 billion over five years a “giveaway to insurance companies” and said it “won’t help the majority of those with preexisting conditions.”
And the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association and American Lung Association, among others, all came out Wednesday in opposition to the AHCA as it stands — even with the MacArthur and Upton amendments.
“This bill, including the MacArthur and Upton Amendments, would undermine that vital safeguard [protecting against higher charges for pre-existing conditions],” their combined statement said. “The various patches offered by lawmakers — including high-risk pools and financial assistance with premiums — do not in any way offer the same level of protection provided in current law.”
BREAKING: New statement from American Cancer Society, Heart Assn, Diabetes Assn, Lung Assn., etc. opposing MacArthur & Upton amendment. pic.twitter.com/20xkEaKxdu
— Jesse Ferguson (@JesseFFerguson) May 3, 2017
The American Medical Association on Wednesday also said the changes to the AHCA do not adequately cover people with pre-existing conditions.
“None of the legislative tweaks under consideration changes the serious harm to patients and the health care delivery system if AHCA passes,” said AMA President Andrew W. Gurman, M.D. “High-risk pools are not a new idea. Prior to the enactment of the Affordable Care Act, 35 states operated high-risk pools, and they were not a panacea for Americans with pre-existing medical conditions. The history of high-risk pools demonstrates that Americans with pre-existing conditions will be stuck in second-class health care coverage – if they are able to obtain coverage at all.”
Colorado’s past with high-risk pools
Colorado has experience with high-risk pools, as it had them from 1990 until 2014, when they were eliminated with the implementation of Connect for Health Colorado, the state health exchange operating under Obamacare.
Colorado was one of 35 states that offered high-risk pools, which are plans that cover people who can’t typically get health insurance – many of them because of their pre-existing conditions.
The state covers much of the funds for the pools through various fees, but insurance companies can raise prices so that state coverage won’t cover care beyond premiums. Federal subsidies also contributed to Colorado’s high-risk pools when they were in place under CoverColorado, the state high-risk pool program.
In 2009, the Colorado Legislative Council found there were around 9,200 people in the state covered through CoverColorado. The plans carried premium caps at 150 percent of standard rates and deductibles of between $1,000 and $5,000, with lifetime deductibles capped at $1 million.
But it found that high health care costs meant that premiums weren’t covering the full cost, despite close to 30 percent of low-income recipients receiving discounts on their premiums.
By the end of 2011, however, the number of Coloradans covered under high-risk pools was close to 14,000 – the sixth-most populous high-risk pool in the country. That accounted for 3.5 percent of the non-group market enrollment that year in the state.
Though many states’ high-risk pools excluded coverage for pre-existing condition for people otherwise eligible for coverage for between 6 and 12 months, Colorado was one of two states that only excluded coverage for the first three months.
And before the ACA effectively eliminated high-risk pools by forcing insurers to exempt pre-existing conditions when considering coverage, the list of pre-existing conditions that would not be covered in Colorado was extensive.
This was Anthem’s medical condition rejection list pre-Obamacare in Colorado:
The Congressional Budget Office has yet to score the revised AHCA, but said in its original analysis that 24 million fewer people would be insured in the next decade than would have been under Obamacare. It also said that the AHCA would have devastating effects on Medicaid across the country.
Colorado’s Medicaid program could suffer losses topping $10 billion, according to analysis.
The Colorado Consumer Health Initiative blasted the revised AHCA Wednesday.
“Coloradans have experience with high-risk pools from before the Affordable Care Act, and it doesn’t work,” said the organization’s spokesman, Adam Fox, saying Coffman has “flipflopped” on his stance to protect Coloradans with pre-existing conditions.
“An additional $8 billion doesn’t magically make high-risk pools work, and Coffman, as a fiscal conservative, should know better than to throw money at a failed idea,” Fox continued. “This isn’t what people in America or Colorado want. It is time for the GOP to drop this crazed fixation on repeal — and move on.”
Late Wednesday, Ryan said the full House would vote on the AHCA on Thursday.
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Undocumented Aurora man detained at work released from ICE hold, will get to see daughter graduate
AURORA, Colo. – Arturo Hernandez-Garcia, the undocumented man who was detained at work last week by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, was released from federal immigration custody late Tuesday and granted a reprieve to go to his daughter’s graduation, according to his lawyer.
Hernandez-Garcia was the first person in Colorado to seek sanctuary from deportation when he did so for nine months in 2014 and 2015 while he faced deportation. Continue reading
Medical marijuana safe from federal crackdown through September, according to near-final budget
DENVER – Colorado’s medical marijuana is safe from a federal crackdown through at least September, after lawmakers worked a rider into the bipartisan budget deal to protect states with medical marijuana programs.
The section of the budget deal pertaining to medical marijuana (pages 230-231) says that the Department of Justice may not use any budgetary funds “to prevent any of [a list of states, districts and territories] from implementing their own laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana.” Continue reading
C-470 expansion project gets $109M in federal loan money
DENVER – The project that will widen C-470 and add express lanes on the highway between I-25 and Wadsworth Boulevard has been approved for $109 million in federal money.
Construction on the C-470 expansion got underway last fall in Douglas County. The project is aimed at alleviating traffic congestion in one of Denver’s highest-trafficked areas.
It will add one express toll lane in both the eastbound and southbound lanes from I-25 to Kipling, another toll express lane on the westbound side from I-25 to Lucent, and another on the eastbound side from Broadway to I-25.
Altogether, the additional lanes will double the width of the highway in some places.
CDOT has estimated that the 100,000 drivers who currently use the 12.6-mile stretch between I-25 and Wadsworth will increase to close to 150,000 drivers by 2035.
It says it expects the additional express lanes to cut travel times by about 18 minutes during peak evening commute hours.
In November, CDOT had already identified $110 million in state and federal funding for the project, and said loans that will be repaid by toll revenues generated by the new lanes would supplement the rest of the construction.
Sen. Cory Gardner touted his work on the loan that will give the project the addition $109 million, which came via the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act – something Gardner and other members of Congress fought to keep intact in 2015.
“This is great news for Colorado,” the Republican senator said. “Our region is in significant need of repairs and new investments to our roads, and this funding is exactly why I fought back at attempts to cut the TIFIA program two years ago.”
“Thanks to the efforts of Senator Gardner and others in the Congressional Delegation, we understand the Committee on Credit and Finance met this week and we are looking forward to a positive outcome to finance this deserving project, ” said Shailen Bhatt, CDOT Executive Director. “The C-470 Express Lanes project is part of CDOT’s vision to improve mobility and reduce congestion in this critical corridor.”
CDOT says it expects the project to be completed by Spring 2019. The project had faced some opposition, including a lawsuit, ahead of construction.
CDOT saw quite the increase in usage of its express toll lanes last year.
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Sen. Bennet files legislation to help Arturo Hernandez-Garcia, Colorado man facing deportation
DENVER – U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet has filed a private bill aimed at keeping a Denver-area man picked up for deportation by federal immigration agents this week from being removed from the country.
Arturo Hernandez-Garcia, 44, was detained at work by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents earlier this week.
Bennet filed private legislation – usually aimed at specific people’s situations, often involving immigration cases – on Thursday to try and stop Hernandez-Garcia from being deported. He also reached out to ICE to request a time extension in deciding Hernandez-Garcia’s case.
“Arturo has been a valued member of our community for nearly two decades,” Bennet said in a statement. “As a business owner, he has contributed to our economy and has always worked hard to support his family. He should not be a priority for deportation.”
Hernandez-Garcia was among the first undocumented immigrants in the country to use a church as a place of sanctuary from federal agents when he spent 9 months at Denver’s First Unitarian Church in 2015.
He left the church after he was told he wasn’t a priority for deportation, despite ICE having given him final removal orders.
ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok told Denver7 earlier this week that Hernandez-Garcia would be held in ICE custody until he is removed.
Hernandez-Garcia first came to the U.S. through El Paso, Texas in January 2003 on a six-month work visa, according to ICE, but outstayed his visa. He was first targeted for deportation after his 2010 arrest on an assault charge for a fight at work – a charge that was later dropped.
In October 2012, a federal immigration judge granted a 60-day voluntary departure request, but those turned into final deportation orders in December 2012, when he failed to voluntarily remove himself from the U.S., according to ICE.
In 2014, an appeal of his deportation was dismissed, but the Board of Immigration Appeals extended his voluntary departure date through Aprill 2014. However, when he didn’t leave, a final order of removal became active again, according to ICE. He had applications for stays of removal denied in May 2014 and March 2015, according to ICE.
Hernandez-Garcia has a wife and two daughters – one of whom was born in the U.S., which generally kept him safe under the Obama administration’s directive that protected undocumented parents of citizen children.
The First Unitarian Church has also been a sanctuary haven for Jeanette Vizguerra, a Mexican national who took sanctuary at the church earlier this year when she was scheduled to be deported. Vizguerra was named as one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people of the year last week, and is one of at least two women in the Denver area currently in sanctuary.
Bennet also issued a private bill seeking relief for Vizguerra in March. His calls for relief come amid an increased focus under the Donald Trump administration to deport anyone living in the country illegally – something Bennet has been loudly opposed to.
He called Hernandez-Garcia’s case “yet another example of this Administration’s misguided immigration policies that do not align with our national priorities and values.”
It’s unclear exactly what effect, if any, the private bill might have on Hernandez-Garcia’s case at this time.
Hernandez-Garcia and Vizguerra’s cases are among several high-profile immigration cases that are currently ongoing in the Denver area.
There is a march in front of the ICE detention facility in Aurora scheduled for Friday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. to protest Hernandez-Garcia’s detainment.
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Mitt Romney’s nephew, Doug Robinson, is running for governor of Colorado in 2018
DENVER – Doug Robinson, Mitt Romney’s investment banker nephew, officially kicked off his candidacy for Colorado’s governorship in 2018 Friday with an appearance at a Highlands Ranch GOP breakfast.
Robinson becomes the third Republican to enter the already-packed governor’s race, after 18th Judicial District Attorney George Brauchler and self-funding former state lawmaker Victor Mitchell.
But State Treasurer Walker Stapleton could also enter the race in the next few months, according to the Denver Post, and four Democrats, including Rep. Ed Perlmutter, have already announced their candidacies to try and succeed John Hickenlooper in 2018.
A recently-retired investment banker, Robinson’s campaign sites say he’ll bring “conservative leadership” to Colorado and touts work with a nonprofit he chaired that helped train kids on technology.
The Post reports that Robinson said he received support from his uncle, Romney, and that the father of five said in a letter to Colorado Republicans that he is a “committed Republican.”
He touted himself as an outsider in Colorado politics, despite him helping run Romney’s 2012 Colorado campaign and his pondering of a 2016 Senate run against Michael Bennet that never came to fruition.
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Denver police chief allays concern within undocumented community over deportation fears
DENVER – Denver’s mayor praised a federal judge’s decision Tuesday to block an executive order by President Donald Trump that would strip federal funding from so-called sanctuary cities – just around the same time that the city’s police chief tried to calm fears in Denver’s immigrant communities.
Denver Police Chief Robert White laid out the city’s plan on how its officers work with federal immigration officials under the Trump administration at a community meeting Tuesday that brought standing-room-only crowds. He started by noting that there have been an uptick in the number of immigration officers in the city, but told the crowd not to worry. Continue reading
Questions abound after oil company’s decision to shutter wells near site of Firestone home explosion
DENVER – Seven active oil and gas wells were shut down in the Firestone neighborhood where a house exploded during a water heater installation on April 17, killing two, state oil and gas officials said Thursday.
The information came as the head of Colorado’s oil and gas commission held a news conference Thursday morning to give more insight into the state’s involvement in the ongoing investigation into the explosion, that led one of the state’s top energy companies to shutter 3,000 wells on Wednesday. Continue reading
National marijuana movement shows no signs of slowing Colorado, which now has more pot biz than ever
DENVER – The recreational marijuana industry is catching up to the medical industry in Colorado in terms of the number of licenses issued by the state, and a tiny northeastern Colorado town has one of the highest concentration of licenses in the state.
The new insight into the state’s burgeoning marijuana industry comes from a compilation of state data by Paul Seaborn, Ph.D., an assistant professor at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business, in his latest report: “Colorado Marijuana Market Report.”
Seaborn used monthly marijuana licensing data from the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division to note changes in the number of licenses issued statewide over the past several years.
He notes that there are now more active marijuana businesses in Colorado than ever before – a blow to the notion that the wave of other states legalizing marijuana might hurt the nation’s first legal recreational industry.
In fact, Seaborn found, the recreational industry has nearly caught up to the medical industry in terms of the number of businesses operating in the state.
The report says that recreational businesses now account for 47.5 percent of marijuana business in Colorado (up from 45.5 percent in December 2016), and that medical businesses made up 52.5 percent (down from 54.5 percent in December).
The report adds that retail dispensary, cultivation and manufacturing licenses have increased in number since December, while their medical counterparts have decreased.
Colorado legalized medical marijuana in 2000 and implemented its recreational program in 2014 after voters approved its legalization in 2012. Recreational marijuana sales outpaced medical sales last year, when the state sold $1.3 billion worth of pot.
Denver continues to account for more than one-third of the state’s licenses, according to the report, which found that Colorado Springs, Boulder, Pueblo and Pueblo West rounded out the top five. Trinidad surpassed Aurora for the first time in numbers of active licenses.
But cracking the top 15 cities in terms of the number of licenses for the first time was tiny Log Lane Village – a town of about 900 near Fort Morgan along I-76 in northeastern Colorado.
There are 18 active business licenses in the tiny town, meaning there is one business license for roughly every 50 people in the town. By comparison, Denver has about one license per every 560 residents, when using July 2016 population data.
The report shows that 121 towns and cities in Colorado now have at least one active marijuana business license.
Native Roots and LivWell continue to have the largest number of licenses, and Green Solution has the third-most. But Seaborn’s report says that no single business has more than 2.1 percent of the state’s licenses.
For more, read the full report here.
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Gardner says Trump administration wants diplomacy, show of force in dealing with North Korea
WASHINGTON – Sen. Cory Gardner said the Trump administration’s stance on how to deal with the threat from North Korea is designed to “counter” what he called the Obama administration’s “strategic patience” that has brought tensions to where they are today.
Read the full transcript of the post-meeting interview at the bottom of this story.
His remarks, which echoed Vice President Mike Pence’s statements last week in which he blamed the Obama administration, came shortly after he left an hour-long briefing at the White House, which was attended by most U.S. senators and presented by President Trump, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, National Intelligence Director Dan Goats and Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Gardner, a Colorado Republican who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and chairs its East Asia, Pacific and International Cybersecurity subcommittee, has over the past several years become one of most-respected congressmen when it comes to North Korea.
That was evident Wednesday, when Sen. Marco Rubio said Gardner was the “go-to person” on North Korea, and Sen. Jeff Flake said that people “trust his instincts” on North Korea in interviews with Roll Call.
Since late last year, Gardner has called multiple times for the Trump administration to be forceful in enforcing policy and sanctions against North Korea for its ongoing nuclear proliferation and missile tests.
“I think it’s clear that North Korea continues to rise in its level of threat,” Gardner told Denver7 Wednesday. “We know that the conditions on the Korean Peninsula are at their most unstable point since the armistice, and that fact is they’re developing a nuclear weapon and they’re trying every day to hit the homeland of the United States with.”
Though Trump only attended the meeting for about five minutes, Gardner says the other national security heads in attendance said that the new administration was working to pressure North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program by utilizing sanctions and pressuring allies like Japan and South Korea to push China to help out with North Korean relations.
But though a State Department statement said the U.S. “seeks stability and the peaceful denuclearization of the Korean peninsula” and that it remains “open to negotiations towards that goal,” which is similar to the Obama administration’s stance, Gardner, like his fellow Republicans, blamed the tension on Obama.
“The doctrine of strategic patience that has been followed the last eight years allowed North Korea to develop a robust nuclear infrastructure, and unfortunately, it kind of led with a condition that if you act bad for long enough, you get what you want,” Gardner said.
But he said the new administration’s policies would be more effective.
“That’s exactly what the new doctrine is designed to counter, and that’s to place maximum pressure on the North Korean regime and maximum pressure on those like China, nations like China, who really, truly do have the economic and the security leverage to denuclearize North Korea,” Gardner said.
He said he was hopeful that warship movements toward the Korean peninsula, and the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system would be effective shows of force, but that working with other Asian allies in diplomatic efforts would prove most worthwhile.
“I believe that the administration is building a relationship with Japan and south Korea, strengthening that relationship between the three nations, which is absolutely critical to pressure China to engage more with North Korea,” Gardner said.
But he also said the new administration should look at secondary sanctions against China and North Korea if they are violating current agreements.
“I think the administration ought to look at additional secondary sanctions on Chinese entities, or individuals who are violating our sanctions, to make sure they are held accountable if they’re helping North Korea gain resources or dollars for the proliferation of their nuclear program,” Gardner told Denver7.
He said he thought there was “a lot of newfound interest in North Korea” from his fellow senators.
North Korea’s mission to the U.N. on Wednesday said the nation’s government would react to a “total” war with the U.S. with nuclear war, adding that the isolated nation would “surely win a victory in the death-defying struggle against the U.S. imperialists” and that North Korea “can never be frightened” by the Trump administration.
And though all signs pointed to efforts by the U.S. to engage in diplomatic negotiations, the State Department said it “remain[s] prepared to defend ourselves and our allies.”
The full transcript of the interview can be read below:
(Denver7’s Blair Miller): You just got out of a meeting at the White House with President Trump and some other folks talking about North Korea. What can you tell me about what you learned?
Sen. Cory Gardner: I think it’s clear that North Korea continues to rise in its level of threat. We know that the conditions on the Korean Peninsula are at their most unstable point since the armistice, and that fact is they’re developing a nuclear weapon and they’re trying every day to hit the homeland of the United States with.
Sen. Gardner: And so the hearing focused on the actions the United States has taken, the actions the U.S. will move forward with.
Sen. Gardner: But more importantly, I think, are the discussions that we continue to have is centered around the policy of strategic patience that led us to this point. The doctrine of strategic patience that has been followed the last eight years allowed North Korea to develop a robust nuclear infrastructure, and unfortunately, it kind of led with a condition that if you act bad for long enough, you get what you want.
Sen. Gardner: And so that’s exactly what the new doctrine is designed to counter, and that’s to place maximum pressure on the North Korean regime and maximum pressure on those like China, nations like China, who really, truly do have the economic and the security leverage to denuclearize North Korea.
—
Miller: I know you’ve done a lot of work, especially over the past several months, on stuff involving North Korean sanctions. Do you see what the administration has going forward in line with what your efforts have been?
Sen. Gardner: Well we have called for a show of force. I believe the administration is carrying that out with the U.S.S. Vincent as well as the deployment of THAD, the missile defense system on the Korean Peninsula. It’s important to protect our allies. We have a treaty obligation to protect South Korea and Japan, and I believe that the administration is building a relationship with Japan and South Korea, strengthening that relationship between the three nations, which is absolutely critical to pressure China to engage more with North Korea.
Sen. Gardner: And so I believe there are additional steps that we should take though. I think the administration ought to look at additional secondary sanctions on Chinese entities or individuals who are violating our sanctions to make sure they are held accountable if they’re helping North Korea gain resources or dollars for the proliferation of their nuclear program.
Sen. Gardner: And so while I’m very pleased to see more pressure being brought to bear on both China and North Korea, I would like to see more in terms of secondary sanctions place on violators of our sanctions.
—
Miller: You seem to have more of a grasp on some of this North Korea stuff than some of, possibly, your fellow senators. Anything they had to say about what they learned today?
Sen. Gardner: I think there’s a lot of newfound interest in North Korea. Two years ago, when I took over the chairmanship of the East Asia subcommittee, I recognized that North Korea was going to be one of the National Security flashpoint that this Congress would face.
Sen. Gardner: And certainly, as we’ve seen five nuclear tests over the past couple of years – dozens of ballistic missile launches and attempts – it’s actually come to fruition as a national security flashpoint. And so what we have to do now is No. 1, maintain our goal of peaceful denuclearization of the North Korean regime. No. 2, we have to enlist our great allies like Japan and South Korea in this effort. And No. 3, we have to put the maximum pressure on China to make sure that they are using their economic leverage to pressure the Kim Jong-Un regime into denuclearization.
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