The evenings are getting cooler and the days shorter. Dont let your exercise routine go by the wayside. Join family and friends outdoors for some fall activities before the snow flies. Rake your leaves into a big pile. Jump and play in the leaves and then do it again! Take a walk to find pretty fall leaves to use in art projects and home decorations. Organize a friendly game of flag or touch football. Get lost (and found again) in a corn maze. Walk around a pumpkin patch to find the perfect one. Take a trip to the country to…
Category: News - Part 5
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Twenty-two days before the slated opening of Colorados new health exchange, the project manager issued yet another red light warning, signaling that data-sharing with Colorados Medicaid systems may not work by Oct. 1 and that Connect for Health Colorado managers might have to shift to contingency plans. On top of troubles meshing with the states Medicaid systems, managers at Connect for Health Colorado are contending with IT snafus from the federal government. Managers warned Colorado board members on Monday that the Social Security Administrations data system likely will be offline for four hours every night from…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon COLORADO SPRINGS Obamacare moved one step closer to becoming reality in Colorado this week. Consumers can now talk with live customer service agents if they want to learn about options to get tax credits and buy health insurance through Colorados new health exchange. The number is: 1-855-PLANS-4-YOU (1-855-752-6749). Connect for Health Coloradoofficially opened its call center this week and dozens of agents are now standing by in a refurbished warehouse where calls started flowing in on Tuesday. Consumers cant sign up for health plans yet. Nor can they determine exactly how much theyll get if they…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon While politicians continue to argue over the fate of Obamacare, consumers are deeply confused about what reform may mean to them and how they can find help. A new tool aimed at delivering answers debuted in Colorado this week: the Blue Guide from the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative. Its mobile. It offers statewide information. And if you tell the website or app where you are, it will use geolocation to instantly show you nearby clinics, mental health centers or assistance sites where you can sign up for health insurance once Colorados new health exchange, Connect for…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Squirrels and software snafus have brought down NASDAQ over the years. Last weeks debilitating three-hour crash of the financial exchange appears to have been triggered by a software glitch, proving that even long-established networks can be vulnerable to catastrophe. In Colorado, an exchange of a different sort Connect for Health Colorado is bracing for different disasters: blizzards, floods and severed data lines. But the most likely potential problems center on connections with Colorados Medicaid computers, insurance industry websites and the federal data hub, which must provide information on tax subsidies to help cut the cost of…
By Richard D. Lamm The difficulty of medical ethics and culture is that it allows, indeed it makes morally obligatory, practices and behaviors that increase health care spending without regard to other public priorities that get crowded out by the incessant demands of health care. To the extent medical ethics drive resource use, they do not give adequate moral guidance to the larger distributional decisions faced by government and other third party payers. Ironically to the extent that medical ethics drive marginal spending, they actually lower both the quality of life and well-being of the community. Key tenants of medical…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Andrea Mahoney was skiing her last run of the day at Breckenridge in January when she heard her knee pop. It sounded bad. The diagnosis she got from her doctor confirmed her hunch. She had torn her ACL and MCL, and had damaged her meniscus. Mahoney had surgery in late February at a physician-owned outpatient center. After extensive pre- and post-surgical physical therapy and a grueling seven months of rehabilitation, shes pleased with her results and now is running again with a brace. Mahoney is eager to get back to her typical athletic routine full of…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Health insurance premiums climbed just 4 percent this year over last, but employees feel bogged down because theyre paying a bigger share of their health costs, according to a new survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation. This is historically a very moderate increase, but people dont perceive it that waybecause year after year, the share of what they pay has gone up, said Drew Altman, president and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation. People still feel the pain of health care costs and worry about paying their health care bills. Premiums have increased 80 percent since…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon People living in resort areas of Colorado will have to pay higher health insurance rates than those in other regions when plans start being sold through the states health exchange on Oct. 1. An average 40-year-old non-smoker living in a resort area who is buying a mid-level silver plan could be charged a base rate as high as $667 per month compared to the least expensive silver plan for a comparable 40-year-old in Greeley, whose base rate would be about $232 per month. Shoppers will also be able to choose from lower level bronze plans and…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Colorados Division of Insurance has approved 242 plans from 13 carriers for the states health exchange, Connect for Health Colorado, which is slated to open on Oct. 1. Deputy Insurance Commissioner Peg Brown briefed members of Colorados health exchange board on Monday on plans that her department has reviewed and approved. Were very pleased with the number of carriers and plans. It represents a wide variety of choice for the Connect for Health marketplace and healthy competition in the Colorado insurance marketplace overall, Brown said. Of the approved plans, 150 are targeted at individuals while 92…