Riding Hot Issues’ Momentum into 2015

With a successful Hot Issues in Health Care conference behind us, the Colorado Health Institute team is looking ahead to a strong finish for 2014.

The Colorado Commission on Affordable Health Care is holding its fifth meeting today, December 8, at Regis University. Agenda items include a discussion of recommendation for statewide meetings and beginning the work of the commission. As always, Senior Communications Expert Joe Hanel will be in attendance. You can expect a new issue of our Policy Examiner publication with details from the meeting tomorrow. For previous issues, visit the Affordable Care Commission page of our website.

We will conduct a webinar from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday on 2015 legislative opportunities and trends. The presentation – 2015 Legislative Forecast: What to Expect When You’re Expecting Gridlock – will cover everything from windmill jousting to TABOR limits and, of course, all the latest in Colorado health policy. Presenters will be Joe and Policy Analyst Allie Morgan. To join us, register here.

We are hard at work on a number of Colorado Health Access Survey (CHAS) briefs to round out 2014. Upcoming briefs will use CHAS data to examine the tie between education and health, the aging of Colorado’s population and the intersection of oral, physical and mental health. Visit our CHAS page to read all of the briefs from 2014 thus far.

An update of last year’s oral health workforce paper is in the works. In 2013, More Dental Insurance: Enough Dental Care offered a picture of Colorado’s oral health workforce landscape prior to the state’s Medicaid expansion. The update to that publication will provide new data from the expansion population to detail the workforce in 2014.

To close, a picture of the CHI team on the night before Hot Issues in Health Care. The nerdy fun T-shirts we are all sporting were inspired by a tie designed by Director of Research on Coverage and Access Jeff Bontrager.