by Rae Ellen Bichell, Kaiser Health News Colorado stands out among the 10 states that have disenrolled the highest share of Medicaid beneficiaries since the U.S. government lifted a pandemic-era restriction on removing people from the health insurance program.
Latest posts
Democrat To Propose a Program To Re-Dispense Unopened Meds To Low-Income Coloradans
By Kate Ruder — On a recent November evening, Angie Phoenix waited at a pharmacy in Colorado Springs to pick up prescription drugs to treat her high blood pressure and arm seizures.
Sales Boom of a Mushroom Considered Poisonous by Some, Psychoactive by Others
by Sam Ogozalek TAMPA, Fla. — When a hemp dispensary in this Florida city started to stock edibles with certain mushroom extracts last year, state regulators quickly ordered it to stop selling the items.
Cash for Colonoscopies: Colorado Tries to Lower Health Costs Through Incentives
State employees in Colorado are being asked to be better consumers when shopping for health care services. And if they choose lower-cost and higher-quality providers, they could get a check in the mail for a portion of the savings.
Colorado Opts Out of a Program That Tracks Teen Behavior as Youth Mental Health Worsens
As the covid-19 pandemic worsened a mental health crisis among America’s young people, a small group of states quietly withdrew from the nation’s largest public effort to track concerning behaviors in high school students. Colorado, Florida, and Idaho will not participate in a key part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior surveys that reaches more than 80,000 students. Over the past 30 years, the state-level surveys, conducted anonymously during each odd-numbered year, have helped elucidate the mental health stressors and safety risks for high school students.
With More Sizzling Summers, Colorado Changes How Heat Advisories Are Issued
by Markian Hawryluk For all the images of ski resorts and snow-capped peaks, Colorado is experiencing shorter winters and hotter summers that are increasingly putting people at risk for heat-related illnesses. Yet until this year, the National Weather Service hadn’t issued a heat advisory for the Denver metropolitan area in 13 years.
Colorado Doubles Down on Abortion Rights as Other States — And the High Court — Reconsider
by Rae Ellen Bichell With the Supreme Court expected to overturn or severely weaken its landmark Roe v. Wade decision, clinics in Colorado are preparing for an increase in the number of out-of-state residents seeking abortions, and lawmakers are cementing abortion access protections in state law.
Targeted by Politicians, Trans Youth Struggle With Growing Fear & Mental Health Concerns
by Sandy West Charlie Apple had experienced people calling into question his humanity, suggesting he was just a confused kid or even a moral aberration. As a transgender teen, he had accepted that his future could include discrimination, verbal abuse, and violence. The sense of peace he said he felt in transitioning physically, however, was worth the risk. Still, it was especially painful last year, Apple said, when Texas lawmakers used the same sort of dehumanizing language he’d heard on the playground as they debated whether to deny trans kids everything from participation in sports to gender-affirming medical care.
As Hospitals Fill Up, Paramedics Spend Less Time on Emergencies
By Helen Santoro, Kaiser Health News GUNNISON, Colo. — The night after Thanksgiving, a small ambulance service that covers a huge swath of southwestern Colorado got a call that a patient needed an emergency transfer from the hospital in Gunnison to a larger one with an intensive care unit 65 miles away in Montrose.
Colorado Hospitals in ‘Critical Condition’ Amid Covid Surge
John Daley, Colorado Public Radio Harold Burch’s home has a spectacular view in Paonia, a rural part of Colorado’s Western Slope at the foot of Mount Lamborn. But the landscape has been little consolation to the 60-year-old as he has battled a cascade of health problems during the pandemic.