public health
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Coffman challengers Salazar, Weiser call attorney general’s appeal decision ‘tone deaf,’ ‘misguided’
The two Democrats running for attorney general in next year’s election on Thursday ripped a decision by Republican incumbent Cynthia Coffman to defy Gov. John Hickenlooper by appealing a court decision critics say could shut down oil and gas production in Colorado. State Rep. Joe Salazar, D-Thornton, and Phil Weiser, a former dean of the…
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Attorney General Coffman appeals Martinez decision over Governor Hickenlooper’s objection
Asserting that Colorado’s governor doesn’t have the authority to overrule a decision made by the state’s oil and gas commission, Attorney General Cynthia Coffman on Thursday appealed a lower court ruling that could effectively shut down drilling in the state despite Gov. John Hickenlooper’s request this week for her office to stand down. The controversy…
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Helton: Vote ‘yes’ on Amendment 69 to control health care spending
ColoradoCare, Amendment 69 on the ballot this November, represents a positive change to health care financing in Colorado. However, the media have published assertions made by the Colorado Health Institute that are misleading. As a citizen of the state, a retired health executive and a health economist, I am concerned that the media is echoing…
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Buck: Democrats need to set aside partisan bluster, fund fight against Zika
Zika is on the move in the United States, infecting mothers and causing birth defects in our children. That’s why I was appalled to read Congresswoman Diana DeGette’s attempt to shift the blame in these pages by blaming Republicans for holding up funding. Let me set the record straight. House Republicans have worked diligently to…
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CDC Director: Just a few weeks’ of Zika funding remain
The head of the government’s fight against the Zika virus said that “we are now essentially out of money” and warned that the country is “about to see a bunch of kids born with microcephaly” in the coming months. Friday’s warning from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Thomas Frieden came as lawmakers start to sort…
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Colorado to decide whether to triple cigarette tax
Colorado voters will decide in November whether to triple cigarette taxes after tobacco sales rose for the first time since the last state tax increase in 2004. An initiative certified Monday for the November ballot would raise the state tax from 84 cents to $2.59 per pack starting Jan. 1. That’s nearly a dollar more than…
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LaFaive and Nesbit: Colorado smuggling to rise along with tobacco tax hike
An initiative that may appear on Colorado’s November’s ballot would, if adopted, nearly triple the state’s current cigarette excise tax. This, we believe the evidence shows, will usher in a wave of cigarette smuggling and other undesirable consequences. Voters should think twice before adopting this tax increase. Research shows high excise taxes invite scofflaws to…
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Clinton focuses on Zika in battleground state of Florida
Hillary Clinton is turning to a major health issue in the battleground state of Florida with a visit Tuesday to a Miami neighborhood dealing with the first U.S. outbreak of the Zika virus. Clinton will call on Republican congressional leaders to summon lawmakers back to Washington from their summer recess and pass emergency funding for…
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Rakowsky and Mamet: City leaders prepared to act on opioid abuse
By Ron Rakowsky and Sam Mamet The media has been replete with the saddest of stories about a serious health issue facing all of our communities — prescription drug abuse. Here are some facts: Two recent news articles deserve mention. In the March 7 Cortez Journal there was an excellent story about this issue and…