Our Work
It’s Valentine’s week, and what better way to celebrate the importance of relationships, communication and compromise than with a look into Colorado’s 2018 legislative session?
Let’s look at some early-session stats:
In the first year terminally ill Coloradans could legally end their lives with the assistance of a prescription drug, Colorado appears to be mirroring the experiences of other states where aid in dying is legal.
In 2017, most of the 69 prescriptions were written for people over the age of 55 struggling with cancer, heart disease or ALS, the degenerative neurological disorder. The vast majority of patients who died after seeking a prescription were white, under hospice care and residents of Front Range cities or suburbs.
The odds were long. At the start of the fifth open enrollment period for Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces last November, there was every reason to believe that enrollment would fall off a cliff in 2018.
Gov. John Hickenlooper celebrated the achievements of the Affordable Care Act and lamented the crisis of high health care costs. But he did not lay out an agenda to rein in prices.
It’s hard to escape partisan political rhetoric these days, and the Colorado legislature — despite being hailed for its “purple” nature and ability to compromise — won’t be a refuge in 2018.
Who could have predicted this year, really?
Here at the Colorado Health Institute, we expected that the new Trump administration, combined with Republican majorities in the House and Senate, would bring a swift end to the Affordable Care Act.
But we’re closing in on the 2017 finish line, and the ACA is still limping along. That’s a surprise. It’s also surprising that the ACA’s individual mandate was killed in the tax reform bill. We didn’t see that one coming until just before it happened.
This has been a year of failed attempts to repeal major portions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), but the fight is not over. On Friday, the Trump administration released new rules that could spell big changes for at least 53,000 Colorado women.
The regulations overturn the Obama-era mandate requiring employers offering health insurance benefits to include birth control in the coverage (with limited exceptions). Under the proposed changes, any company — large or small, public or private — can request a moral or religious exemption to the mandate and stop covering birth control.
For the first time in nearly 11 months, it’s probably safe for advocates of health coverage to exhale. At least for a moment.
Back in July, the last time Republicans in the U.S. Senate nearly repealed major portions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) but failed at the last minute, the Colorado Health Institute published a blog title “Obituary for the Undead.” The blog warned that the repeal bill was still alive and could be taken up again at any moment.
State officials have announced that prices on Colorado’s individual market for 2018 health plans will rise an average of 26.7 percent.
The Affordable Care Act stabilization plan offered by Democratic governor John Hickenlooper and Ohio’s Republican governor, John Kasich, falls squarely into the “keep and fix” camp.