Colorado soaks poorer residents to solve Obamacare political problem
In April, 2014, emails from Insurance Commissioner Marguerite Salazar to various Colorado officials discussed what to do about the high Obamacare premiums in Colorado’s resort counties. Obamacare caused skyrocketing premiums in Colorado’s ski resort counties, and the discussion was about how to redistribute the premium increases. Ms. Salazar sought rate quotes from Rocky Mountain Health […]
Numbers cast doubt on Hickenlooper’s teen pregnancy claims
Has Colorado really had more success in preventing “teen” pregnancies than other states? Gov. John Hickenlooper said yes in a news conference convened within days of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby decision. But the numbers cast serious doubt on his story.
The Colorado health exchange costs federal taxpayers $1,427 per enrollee
A May 2014, report from the law firm Mehri & Skalet estimates that the Colorado health exchange is costing federal taxpayers $1,427 per enrollee. That was before its director, Patty Fontneau, got the $14,000 bonus, and a 2.5 percent salary bump that raised her salary to $195,314 a year and sweetened an already generous retirement […]
Colorado’s Obamacare exchange deserves an audit
By Joshua Sharf Imagine you own stock in a company that consistently failed to meet sales targets, yet the CEO asked for a raise. Imagine that a director had been indicted for embezzlement from a previous employer; an ad campaign had been launched that verged on the pornographic in order to achieve its desired customer […]
Senate Bill 016 gives hospitals an emergency room monopoly
In 2013, University of Colorado School of Medicine researchers concluded that people covered by Medicaid and Medicare use emergency rooms because they lack timely access to primary care. Thanks to the Colorado legislators who voted to expand Colorado Medicaid, an estimated 275,000 more people will ultimately enroll in the program, according to estimates by the […]
States Begin Selling Information from their All-Payer Databases
Even before the Colorado legislature passed the All-Payer Database law and the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing turned your medical records over to CIVHC, a private 501(c)(3), the Independence Institute warned that allowing states to routinely requisition medical records would compromise medical privacy (see this, this, and this). The problem is that medical […]
27 Ways Obamacare Increases Your Health Insurance Premium
Supporters of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act claim that it will reduce Colorado health care costs and health insurance premiums. Nonsense. Even economist Jonathan Gruber, an ObamaCare architect, estimated that it would increase premiums in Colorado’s individual market by 19 percent. Don’t be fooled when the businesses, bureaucrats, and non-profits who benefit from increasing your premiums choose to blame your higher costs on everything but the ObamaCare law.
Colorado Medicaid expansion would make 86,000 college students eligible
by Linda Gorman Gov. John Hickenlooper wants yet another expansion of Colorado Medicaid. This one will cover the more than 86,000 college students in Colorado that the Census Bureau estimates have incomes below the federal poverty level. It also will cover the unknown number of otherwise healthy single students above the poverty level who have […]
Paul Hsieh, MD: Why Doctors Should Not Ask Their Patients About Guns
A local colleague, Dr. Matthew Bowdish, has declared, “I will not undermine the Second or Fourth Amendment rights of any of my patients who are lawful gun owners. Nor will I record my patients’ gun ownership status in any medical records that could be accessed by government officials unless relevant to a specific medical issue.” This should be the credo of all freedom-loving physicians. Continue reading
Reforming Medicaid with “Health Stamps”
The idea behind health stamps is straightforward. Like food, health is generally considered a necessity. So why not treat it the same way we treat food? Continue reading
Obamacare’s not-so essential benefits
“As healthy young people flee the insurance market, sick patients will disproportionately fill insurance pools, driving premiums up across the
board.” Continue reading
John Lott: The Facts About Assault Weapons and Crime
“Yet despite being at the center of the gun-control debate for decades, neither President Obama nor Ms. Feinstein (the author of the 1994 legislation) seems to understand the leading research on the effects of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. In addition, they continue to mislabel the weapons they seek to ban.” Continue reading
