By Courtney Law After 2 1/2 years as the law of the land, Obamacare has benefited millions of Americans and will benefit millions more as the law becomes fully implemented. The idea behind the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is that no Americans should have to go into debt because they need health care. President Obama’s health care law expands access to the care Americans need and lowers its cost. The heart of the law is to hold insurance companies accountable by prohibiting them from cutting off coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. For years,…
Category: Legislation - Part 12
By Bob Semro The closest real-world example to the Affordable Care Act is the health reform plan implemented in Massachusetts in 2006. Even though the ACA has a 50-state focus, the plans are very much alike. To get an idea of how the ACA might work, it’s useful to look at the Massachusetts experiment. First, an important distinction: The Massachusetts reform plan is less dependent upon taxes and fees than the ACA. This is largely because federal funding has paid for about 64 percent of the cost of the plan, with the state absorbing 18 percent and hospitals and providers…
By Linda Gorman The Obama Administration’s health law assumes that U.S. health care system problems occur because patients and providers have too much freedom. In contrast, Gov. Romney’s proposed reforms recognize that 70 years of regulatory accretion has compromised the ability of the system to adjust to dramatic demographic, economic and technological change. In short, the problem is too much of the wrong kind of regulation rather than too little. Gov. Romney says that he would increase choice and competition, reduce wasteful spending by equalizing the tax treatment of individually-purchased and employer-provided health plans, and rescue Medicare by replacing the…
By Diane Carman Ezekiel Zeke Emanuel told an audience Thursday morning that the United States will be guaranteed a much better health care system by 2020 because of the Affordable Care Act, while his debate opponent Linda Gorman countered that the objective of Emanuel and other architects of Obamacare was really to limit our freedom. The debate, sponsored by the University of Denver and the Denver Post, revealed yet again how far apart Americans remain on the issue of health care reform two years after its passage. Emanuel, a University of Pennsylvania professor who served as special advisor to the…
By Leia Larsen and Katharina Bucholz CU News Corps for I-News Colorados ballot initiative to legalize marijuana possession is billed by one leading local advocate as a grassroots effort here on the ground, but an examination of contributions to the campaign tell a different story. Contribution records from the Colorado Secretary of States office show that the four registered committees supporting legalization collected more than $1.4 million through Sept. 12, with more than $1.2 million coming from outside Colorado. They have an incredible amount of money, said Floyd Ciruli, analyst at the polling firm Ciruli Associates. It primarily came from…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon and Kaiser Health News The number of Americans without health insurance fell to 48.6 million last year, or 15.7 percent of the population, the first drop since 2007, according to new U.S. Census numbers released today. At the same time, a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation has found that health insurance premiums for employer-sponsored family health coverage reached $15,745 this year. Thats up 4 percent over last year, but a more modest increase than in previous years when health costs far outpaced earnings. The average family pays nearly $4,500 a year for its share of…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has reversed decades of advice on circumcision and now says that the benefits of the procedure outweigh the risks. The first policy statement on circumcision since 1999 has triggered angry reactions from opponents who called on the influential group to immediately retract the policy recommendation. Since the 1970s, the AAP had said circumcisions were not medically necessary. Removing the foreskin of the penis from infant boys is an ancient Jewish and Islamic tradition, but circumcision rates have been declining in the U.S. and even in Israel. An increasing number of…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon LAKEWOOD As Medicare has leapt into the top-tier of issues that will decide the presidential contest, Colorados population of older adults is ballooning. Colorado now boasts the fourth fastest-increasing population of seniors in the country and these aging baby boomers who vote in large numbers could help drive election results in key swing counties of this crucial swing state. Mitt Romneys pick of U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, for his running mate has put Medicare at the center of the national debate. Ryan supports dismantling the public health insurance program for seniors and replacing it with…
By Ashley Mayo With all of the politics surrounding the passage and implementation of the Affordable Care Act, its easy to lose sight of the ways the law is fundamentally improving health care in Colorado and across America. In our state alone, 291,000 children with pre-existing conditions can no longer be denied coverage, 50,000 young adults have gained insurance by staying on their parents plans, and over 200,000 residents will receive rebate checks from insurers who failed to meet the 80/20 rule. On Aug. 1, Obamacare brings yet another historic reform: insurance companies must cover preventive services for women without…
By Polly Anderson Critics of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act call it too radical, too expensive and a threat to high quality medicine. But in truth, federal health reform emphasizes a return to the caring, personalized, evidence-based medicine that is well established at Colorados community health centers. While some are still debating the merits of expanding Colorados Medicaid program to a larger percentage of the poor, Colorado community health centers are not waiting to move forward. A growing pool of evidence tells us that our model is the future, and were preparing for a groundswell in patients, be…