Health Care for All Colorado - NEWS – April 2015 

Index

1. A message from Donna Smith, Executive Director, HCAC/HCACF.
2. HCAC Denver Chapter Meeting – presentation by CHCC (Sen. Irene Aguilar)
3. Colorado Cost Commission meetings
4. Colorado legislature bills
5. HCAC Annual Meeting
6. HCACF Education Meeting/Fund Raiser – May 2015 – CANCELLED
7. Medicare 50^th Anniversary celebration – July 30, 2015   . 

After Hearing Testimony From HCAC Leader, CO Senate Bill 15-197 Passes Out of Committee

HCAC has taken the position to support SB 15-197, a bill that reduces the number of hours required for Advance Practice Registered Nurse (APRN) oversight from 3600 to 1000 hours, an amount that is still higher than the requirement in most states.  Although years of research and the most recent Institute of Medicine Study conclude that APRNs provide safe, high quality access to care at a lower cost, this bill faces strong opposition from physician groups.  

On March 12,  Judith Burke, HCAC secretary, provided the following testimony to  Senate Health & Human Services Committee on behalf of HCAC. 

Colorado House Bill 1029 and the Extension of Telemedicine

Notes on CO HB15-1029 (Health Care Delivery via Telemedicine Statewide) by Shelley Dworet Cohen, MD, chair of the HCAC legislative committee and former HCAC president.

HR676 -- Improved and Expanded Medicare for All for life Re-Introduced!

Rep. John Conyers, D-MI, has re-introduced HR676 -- and onTuesday, February 3, 2015, HR676 had 44 co-sponsors.  Not one of those co-sponsors is from Colorado even though the single-payer movement is alive and well here.  Please get on the phone and call your elected officials.  

HCAC JOINS IN LARGEST DENVER MLK, JR., MARADE -- SUPPORTS HEALTH EQUALITY

FROM THE  DENVER POST -- Denver Mayor Michael Hancock estimated 30,000-plus gathered at City Park on Monday morning and marched downtown as part of the city's annual Marade. The crowd called — or rather bellowed — for more than just progress in race, marching also for social justice, education reform and healthcare equality.

In Memory of Dr. Gary Parks,

Our Single-Payer Friend and Advocate

Dr. Gary Lee Parks, 64, of Pueblo, passed away on Wed. Sept. 3, 2014, after battling a rare cancer. He was at home with his family by his side.

This weekend I was lucky enough with the help of Progressive Democrats of America and National Nurses United/California Nurses Association to attend the Healthcare-NOW national strategy conference in Nashville, TN.  Ever since I met Healthcare-NOW's founder, Marilyn Clement on July 17, 2007, in Washington, D.C.,  I have been absolutely blessed to know the committed and compassionate people who build the grassroots movement for improved and expanded Medicare for all for life. 

Donna Smith, Executive Director of Health Care for All Colorado, can be heard during an interview session where questions were asked by the moderator during the first half.  And,  then by the audience in the second half.   Her visit to Fort Collins was sponsored by Health Care for All Colorado Northern Colorado Chapter on April 3, 2013.  These interviews were created by the Tim Caffrey Show for a local TV channel in Fort Collins. 

During the first half of the evening she was asked several questions by Tim Caffrey, from Northern Colorado Progressives, regarding her entrance into the fight for single payer health care.  You can watch how Donna Smith decided to fight the powerful Health Insurance Money machine!   She spends her time discussing how and why she and her husband Larry agreed to go to Cuba with Michael Moore for her medical care.  

In a heartbreaking segment she tells how American insurance companies blocked their path to obtain the health care she needed.  This happens every day in every state.  She shares how personal bankruptcies are more often experienced by individuals who have health insurance.   She is then asked why she joined Health Care for All Colorado and Health Care for all Colorado Foundation. 

One of the many points Donna makes about the flaws of our private insurance based health care system, "Health insurance is not health care.  Health insurance is a financial product sold to us to protect our health and our wealth but does neither thing very well."

Throughout the video you will see “overlays” of “fact sheets” from a number of valuable sources.   

Today was the rate filing deadline for insurers planning on participating in Colorado's new health insurance exchange, or "marketplace." For months, the media has been anticipating "rate shock" as insurers raise premiums to meet new requirements, such as not sell junk insurance.

When the filings are released publicly by the Division of Insurance in a few days we will know the scope of the "rate shock," but will we really be shocked to see yet another double-digit increase in premiums?

In the consumer marketplace, businesses and vendors are free to charge whatever they wish to charge for the product or service they offer.   Customers may shop around for better deals, and competing businesses may even engage in price wars to earn higher sales.  But in the arena of our lives in which we often have the least control or information, we are at the mercy of health care profiteers who routinely charge whatever the traffic will bear.  While these costs may not always be directly passed along to patients who have private or public insurance coverage, it will be difficult for us to begin controlling costs in our health care system with so many providers nationally and in Colorado taking advantage of so little oversight of their industry.