Resources: Healthcare

First complete snapshot of Great Recession underscores the Importance of Medicaid

Colorado Center on Law & Policy; September, 2010, 2 pages.

Data the U.S. Census Bureau released today examine health insurance, poverty and income.  Colorado statistics include several key insurance facts. More than 17% of Coloradans younger than 65 (or roughly three-quarters of a million people) did not have health insurance. The number included 134,500 kids. More than one out of five children relied on Medicaid for health insurance. That represents 265,000 kids in Colorado, a number that has almost doubled since the beginning of the decade.

Human Impact of Health Reform

Colorado Center on Law & Policy; Colorado Consumer Health Initiative; February, 2010; 20 pages.

In an effort to clarify the specific impacts of the healthcare legislation in Congress, an analysis was conducted on different people around Colorado. It is an unbiased non-partisan review of different aspects in both the House and Senate versions and was created as a tool to discern real and actual impacts. This analysis of five unique Colorado stories illustrates how the legislation impacts an unemployed senior, a doctor, a mid-level manager, a well-known restaurant and a successful non-profit.

Can Coloradans Afford Health Care?

Colorado Center on Law & Policy; April 2009; 51 pages (with 2-page Executive Summary).

As the debate around health care reform evolves at the state and federal levels, there are three critical areas that policymakers must consider: adequacy, accessibility, and — the subject of this study — affordability.   Affordability is often mentioned as critical in the health care debate, but is seldom put into context. That is the aim of this study is to assist in determining what affordability means for Colorado families.  As families grapple with increasingly difficult economic realities, this study shows clear evidence that low-income Coloradans struggle to make ends meet, many families have little or nothing at all to pay for health care, and, in many cases, health care costs require financial tradeoffs elsewhere.

The Maze: The Barriers that keep Colorado's Eligible Children out of Medicaid and the Children's Health Plan Plus

Covering Kids and Families; April, 2009; 35 pages (with 3-page Executive Summary)

Colorado’s Medicaid and Child Health Plan Plus (CHP+) programs provide health care coverage to almost 390,000 children and their parents. Nonetheless, nearly 78,000 of Colorado’s estimated 153,000 uninsured children are eligible for but not enrolled in the programs.  Although many of the barriers to Medicaid and CHP+ coverage are well known by policy-makers, government agencies and advocates, nowhere have barriers in each stage of the process — from outreach to eligibility determination to enrollment to renewal – been catalogued in one place.

In this report, Covering Kids and Families fully examines the maze that represents the current state of Colorado’s Medicaid and CHP+ eligibility and enrollment process and synthesizes available information about the barriers applicants face. Based upon these enrollment barriers, the report then explores options for reform to the system and provides a series of recommendations based on a comprehensive review of administrative and policy options and best practices that can guide Colorado’s decision-makers as they work to simplify the path to Medicaid and CHP+ coverage.

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Recommendations for Health Reform in Colorado

Blue Ribbon Commission for Health Care Reform; January, 2008; 12 pages.

The Commission was created by the Colorado State legislature in 2006 and was charged with studying and establishing health care reform models to expand health care coverage and to decrease health care costs for Colorado residents. The Commission was authorized to examine options for expanding affordable health coverage for all Colorado residents in both the public and private sector markets, with special attention given to the uninsured, underinsured, and those at risk of financial hardship due to medical expenses.  This document summarizes those recommendations.