Health Care
Denver Post Editorial Board editor discusses ‘Lying Trump’ editorial
DENVER – “Lying Donald Trump can’t be trusted, and that needs to stop now.”
That headline screamed from the editorial page of the Denver Post Thursday morning, as The Post’s Editorial Board took a firm stance early in Donald Trump’s presidency that it would not tolerate the lies and “alternative facts” he and his spokesman have propagated in their first week in the White House. Continue reading
Colorado officials say they’ll stand up to Trump’s immigration orders, but some Coloradans fearful
DENVER – President Donald Trump issued an executive order Wednesday that would strip all federal funding from cities and counties, including several in Colorado, that do not help federal agents target and deport people specifically for living in the U.S. illegally.
Another order signed Wednesday will affect visas and immigration from a handful of predominantly-Muslim nations in Africa and the Middle East that have large immigrant populations in the Denver area, and is causing further concern and questions among those groups. Continue reading
Bill would require probable cause for police access to people’s prescription records
DENVER – A bill under consideration in the Colorado Legislature would make it harder for law enforcement agencies to gain access to Coloradans’ prescription drug information.
Senate Bill 32 would require Colorado law enforcement agencies and regulatory boards to have a judge or neutral third party approve a warrant backed by a sworn affidavit or testimony before they can access the state’s prescription drug monitoring program. The bill was proposed by Sen. Michael Merrifield, a Democrat from El Paso County.
The state’s program is aimed at mitigating the abuse or misuse of prescription drugs. Pharmacies and doctors are required to upload prescription information for all Schedule II-V drugs prescribed and distributed to patients into the program’s database each day. The bulk of prescription drugs fall under those categorizations.
In Colorado, the law currently requires the requesting agency or board to prove that the information is related to a specific “practitioner, patient or pharmacy” amid an ongoing “bona fide investigation.”
But Coloradans could still have their private information and past prescriptions shared with law enforcement agencies that fill out an administrative subpoena which does not go before independent court officials before it is issued by the agency.
As revealed by a five-month investigation last August by Denver7’s Washington bureau, Scripps News, Colorado was one of 31 states that allowed law enforcement and regulatory boards to access that private consumer information without probable cause.
The Scripps News investigation uncovered an incident in Utah in which local police investigating the theft of drugs from an ambulance accessed the private prescription records of all 480 employees of the United Fire Authority of Salt Lake County. None of the employees were suspects, no court approved the search and no probable cause ever existed that any of the employees were involved in the theft.
Two of the employees were eventually charged after police used the information they obtained, though their charges were not related to the theft and were eventually dropped altogether.
Utah auditors later found that warrantless access to the database “may have resulted in questionable use” of the database by other law enforcement agencies in more than half the sampled cases.
The Scripps News investigation found that in 2014-15 alone, law enforcement nationally had accessed at least 344,921 Americans’ prescription histories in the 31 states that don’t require a warrant or court order.
Utah has since changed its law to require warrants be approved before the information is released.
Sen. Merrifield told Scripps Monday that his bill is aimed at providing better protections for Coloradans, and simply requires law enforcement agencies and regulatory boards to establish probable cause for the search.
“We need to protect Coloradans’ constitutional right to privacy,” he said. “It simply isn’t right that any law enforcement official or regulator could access private health records without any form of judicial oversight. As technology advances, and these records become digitized, Colorado needs to make sure investigations into people’s prescription health records are done so with a judge’s approval, just like any investigation into any other personal database.”
The bill is scheduled for its first hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee Feb. 1.
Scripps News’ senior national investigative correspondent Mark Greenblatt contributed to this report.
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Proposal to fix K-12 funding shortfall calls for higher pot tax, less in senior property tax breaks
DENVER – Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper wants the state Legislature to cut a property tax exemption for senior homeowners and to increase the state special sales tax on marijuana for the upcoming fiscal year in order to bridge a state budget gap that hits K-12 education the hardest.
The request, made by the governor and the Office of State Planning and Budgeting and submitted Tuesday to the Joint Budget Committee, seeks to address a projected $106.2 million shortfall in the budget first submitted last November. Continue reading
New poll finds large increase in support for government-backed health care coverage over past year
DENVER – A new survey from the Pew Research Center shows increased nationwide support for government-supported health care and that low-income Republicans have increasingly warmed to the idea of health care coverage for all Americans over the past year.
The report, published Friday, found that 60 percent of Americans support government-backed health care coverage for all Americans – a 9 percent increase from a poll last year and the highest percentage Pew has found since a 2006 Gallup survey.
But the numbers are still widely split between Democrats, 85 percent of whom polled support federal health care coverage, and Republicans, of whom only 32 percent said they supported government-backed health care.
The report also found that 52 percent of Republicans with household incomes of less than $30,000 per year support government-backed health care for all – up from 31 percent nine months ago.
The near-20 percentage point increase was also seen among “middle class” Republicans earning between $20,000 and $74,999 per household each year. Thirty-four percent of those polled said they supported government-backed health care coverage, compared to 14 percent last year.
Just 18 percent of Republicans making more than $75,000 a year said they supported government-backed health care coverage.
The splits in the report mostly boiled down to a family’s income level. Seventy-four percent of households making less than $30,000 a year support the government backing health care coverage, but only 53 percent of households making above $75,000 a year agreed.
But there were also splits when those surveyed were asked whether they supported a single-payer system or one like the current system set up under the Affordable Care Act in which the government subsidizes people’s plans that they buy through private insurance companies operating on national or state exchanges.
Twenty-eight percent of those surveyed said they supported a single-payer, government program; 29 percent said they wanted a mix of government and private programs; 32 percent said the government should not be responsible for ensuring nationwide health care but wanted the government to continue Medicare and Medicaid coverage; and just 5 percent said there should not be any government involvement in health care coverage of any kind.
Congressional Republicans have already passed the initial steps to repealing the ACA, though there is no replacement plan in place despite promises from President-elect Donald Trump and others that they would “repeal and replace” the ACA.
There were rallies held across the country Sunday, including in Denver, to ask that Congress not repeal the ACA, often referred to as Obamacare.
Sunday, Trump said he wanted “health insurance for all” but his spokesman, Sean Spicer, walked those comments back.
Gallup data from December found that some of the counties and states that voted for Trump in November also saw the highest enrollments in the Affordable Care Act coverage last month.
The Pew Research Center poll was based on telephone interviews of 1,502 adults in all 50 states and was conducted Jan. 4-9.
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Arapahoe House of Colorado to end detox services next June
DENVER – Arapahoe House of Colorado, the state’s largest provider of substance abuse treatment, is ending all of its detox services in six months.
Mike Butler, the non-profit’s CEO, knows firsthand what resources like the center mean to Coloradans.
“I have close to 29 years of sobriety, and not a day goes by that I’m not thinking about drinking,” he said. “I’m committed to helping others like me find the help that they need.”
But he says Arapahoe House isn’t being reimbursed enough for the 10,000 patients it puts through detox each year, and that the business can’t keep up with the funding gap.
“With the changing landscape and the complexity around health care reform, we’re having to make tough decisions about where we’re focusing our resources,” Butler said.
He says three in 10 Coloradans suffer from some sort of substance abuse or mental health disorder, and that someone in Colorado will die of an accidental overdose every 9 ½ hours.
“There’s a tremendous and overwhelming need for treatment in Colorado,” Butler said. “Every day we turn around individuals who are at a point in their illness where they need help and we can’t get them into our programs fast enough.”
Arapahoe House will stop detox services on June 30 of next year. It says it will put those resources toward more in-treatment programs they believe will have a lasting impact.
Arapahoe House has three detox centers in Aurora, Commerce City and Wheat Ridge. Butler says he’s working with other organizations to fill the void they will leave next summer.
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New laws on medical aid in dying, minimum wage, HOV lanes, medical marijuana in effect
DENVER – A handful of Colorado laws will take effect either by the end of this month or as of Jan. 1 next year that will bring major changes for drivers, workers and the terminally-ill, among others.
PROPOSITION 106 – MEDICAL AID IN DYING
The first law to come into effect is likely to be the “right-to-die” measure, Proposition 106, which was approved by voters in the Nov. 8 General Election.
Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams certified the state’s election results and signed off on the measure late last week.
Now, Gov. John Hickenlooper has 30 days to sign the measure, and other successful ballot measures, into state law. Should he not sign off on the successful measures, they will automatically become law after the 30-day deadline.
But Hickenlooper is expected to sign Proposition 106 by the end of the month.
Voters approved Proposition 106 by 64.9 percent. Terminally-ill patients seeking end-of-life prescriptions will be able to start requesting them as soon as Hickenlooper certifies the results.
The proposition would change Colorado statutes to allow any “mentally-capable” adult aged 18+ with a diagnosed terminal illness that leaves them six months or less to live to receive a prescription from a licensed physician that can be taken voluntarily to end their life.
The person’s primary physician and a secondary physician would both have to confirm the person has six or fewer months to live, and would also have to be deemed mentally-capable enough to make the end-of-life decision by two physicians as well.
The change in statute would create immunity from civil or criminal lawsuits, as well as from professional discipline, for the physicians aiding the patient in dying. Under current law, those physicians face felony manslaughter charges for doing so.
But it would also be a class-2 felony for anyone to tamper with a request for the end-of-life medication or coerce a patient into making an end-of-life decision
Colorado is the fifth state to legalize similar measures. Oregon, California, Vermont and Washington already have similar laws on their books. Montana’s law books leave the question open as to whether such measures are legal in the state.
Read more on Proposition 106 here.
MINIMUM WAGE INCREASE KICKS IN JAN. 1
Another ballot measure that will go into effect almost immediately will be the state minimum wage hike – which was approved by 55.4 percent of voters in November under its ballot moniker, Amendment 70.
Starting Jan. 1, the statewide minimum wage will change to $9.30 per hour for non-tipped workers. It will rise by $0.90 per hour each year until it reaches $12 an hour on Jan. 1, 2020.
The current minimum wage for non-tipped workers is $8.31 per hour and $5.29 for tipped workers. Starting Jan. 1, tipped workers will make $6.28 per hour. Colorado law mandates tipped wages remain set at $3.02 less than non-tipped wages.
By 2020, the minimum wage for tipped workers will be $8.98.
The current federal minimum wage is set at $7.25 per hour for non-tipped workers and $2.13 per hour for tipped workers.
Starting in 2021, the minimum wage will again be tied back to the state’s consumer price index, though Amendment 70 would change the constitution to prevent a decrease in the minimum wage if the cost of living falls.
THREE-PERSON HOV LANE REQUIREMENTS START JAN. 1
Also beginning on New Year’s Day will be the three-person requirement in order to use the HOV express lanes between Denver and Boulder.
Currently, drivers only need one passenger to use the lanes, but the Colorado Department of Transportation made the new plans to require an extra passenger in 2013.
CDOT told Denver7 earlier this month the three-person requirement will keep the lanes from getting too crowded, and that toll revenue generated by users will help offset the costs of building and maintaining the lanes.
Anyone who breaks the new three-person rule is subject to a $250 fine.
Resources for finding carpoolers can be found here.
NEW RULES FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA GROWERS, CAREGIVERS
Also set to become effective Jan. 1 are new rules for medical marijuana growers and primary caregivers for medical marijuana patients passed in a bill in 2015.
The rules were part of the bill that targeted people selling illegal marijuana by implementing more oversight over growers.
Starting Jan. 1, primary caregivers will be the only person allowed to grow and provide medical marijuana to a patient if they utilize a caregiver. Licensed medical marijuana growers will also be allowed to sell medical pot.
But the primary caregivers growing medical marijuana will have to register the location of their grow, their patients’ registration numbers in the medical program and plant counts with the state.
Transporters will also have to tell the state the number of plants or amount of medical marijuana going to each patient, as well as who the product is going to.
Primary caregivers will also be limited to growing and transporting up to 36 plants unless their patients have an extended plant count. They will be limited to 99 plants even with the extended count.
Also included in that bill and set to go into effect Jan. 1 is a voluntary patient registration for people growing more than six plants. They are allowed to grow up to 99 plants. The law says any information from voluntary registrants will be kept private, though their grow locations would be verified by the state.
The law says most of the new facets going into effect Jan. 1 are aimed at protecting growers and patients from law enforcement operations targeting illegal grows, after some agencies voiced concerns over a lack of knowledge of who was growing legally and who wasn’t.
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Report: Colorado’s VA hospitals got 2 and 3-star ratings out of 5 in internal VA reports
AURORA, Colo. – Colorado’s two Veterans Affairs medical centers received two and three stars out of five in a secret rating system the Department of Veterans Affairs has in place.
USA Today on Wednesday published the never-before-see star ratings Wednesday after obtaining the internal documents. Five stars were assigned to the best hospitals, while one star was given to the worst.
The documents show Denver’s VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System was given two stars and the Grand Junction VA Medical Center was given three stars in the most-recent reports available for both hospitals, from the fourth quarter of 2015.
Data from the second quarter of 2016 was released to USA Today for centers rated with either one or five stars, but centers that got two, three, or four-star reviews saw no new data released.
Many of the lowest-performing centers, according to the internal ratings, were centered in Texas and Tennessee; the Dallas, El Paso, Nashville, Memphis and Murfreesboro centers all received one-star ratings in the second quarter of 2016. The much-discussed Phoenix VA also received one star.
Most of the top-performing centers that received five stars were situated in the Northeast and Upper Midwest, according to the data.
USA Today says the ratings are determined by “dozens of factors” that include death and infection rates, wait times and complications suffered by patients that could have been avoided.
VA Undersecretary for Health David Shulking told the paper the rankings are considered an “internal improvement tool.”
“My concern is that veterans are going to see that their hospital is a ‘one’ in our star system, assume that’s bad quality and veterans that need care are not going to get care,” he told USA Today. “And they’re going to stay away from hospitals and that’s going to hurt people.”
The VA said 120 of 146 hospitals rated on the scale have shown improvement since July 2015, though Shulking declined to specify which hadn’t aside from the one-star Detroit VA.
Veterans Affairs has been closely scrutinized across the country because of wait times and patient deaths, among other things.
Colorado’s specifically have also come under fire over the past two years.
A September federal report found the department’s lack of oversight and “gross mismanagement” in Aurora added hundreds of millions in costs to the new hospital.
And just last month, a VA employee who blew the whistle to Congress that the department was using unauthorized wait lists for mental health care resigned after alleged retaliation.
A new billboard has gone up in Denver that says, “VA is Lying, Veterans are Dying.”
Last year, the Grand Junction center stopped performing several surgeries and procedures after two patients died over a nine-month period and several other patients suffered complications.
Shulkin told USA Today that veterans shouldn’t have to wait for care, and that the number of them waiting for more than a month for care has dropped from nearly 60,000 to 600 since he took over the department in July 2015.
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Donald Trump backs off some campaign promises, reinforces others in ’60 Minutes’ interview
DENVER – Americans got their first look at what a Donald Trump White House will look like Sunday in an interview with “60 Minutes,” and the president-elect is already tamping down expectations for some of the promises he made during the campaign season.
Trump’s interview with Leslie Stahl was done last week and released Sunday. The two talked about the election, taxes, the Affordable Care Act, foreign policy, immigration and the economy, among other subjects. Continue reading
What does the future hold for Coloradans after Tuesday’s General Election?
DENVER – Tuesday’s General Election marked a monumental shift in American politics, as voters elected a new president, shifted the makeup of Congress and approved several measures in Colorado that will have long-lasting effects in state politics.
Voters elected Republican Donald Trump to the presidency via the Electoral College and also confirmed that both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate will remain in control of the GOP, which means Republicans now should have a better chance of passing laws than had been the case in most of the past years, when the presidency and the two chambers of Congress were held by different parties. Continue reading