rural hospitals

Special session in the works to fix error in hospital provider fee bill

Sep 13, 2017

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JOEY BUNCH

State lawmakers could return to the Capitol next month to fix a drafting error in one of the last session’s most important accomplishments, Senate Bill 267, the significant compromise that raised money for rural Colorado hospitals and schools, as well as transportation, by tinkering with the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. The governor’s office confirmed it…
Letter: Gardner behind closed doors on ACA repeal

Jun 21, 2017

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Colorado Politics

Editor: Republicans in the U.S. Senate are secretly crafting a repeal of the Affordable Care Act. What has Sen. Cory Gardner told the citizens of Colorado about this bill? Nothing! Why the secrecy? Why no open hearings? The ACA had 100 open hearings. Currently in Colorado, 175,964 citizens enrolled in ACA health insurance plans for…
Rural Colorado hospitals get a little good news from Bennet and Gardner with Medicare bill

Apr 24, 2017

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Joey Bunch

Rural Colorado hospitals haven’t had much good news lately, with Colorado lawmakers eying deep cuts into the state and federal money they receive in order to fatten up the largest budget in state history. But give Colorado Sens. Michael Bennet and Cory Gardner credit for trying to steer some help their way, introducing legislation to permanently extend Medicare financing…
Colorado Senate GOP turns sleuth in search of MIA budget bills

Apr 19, 2017

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Joey Bunch

Look out, House Democrats! That’s Sen. Don Coram snooping around your front door for clues about the budget in the latest video from Colorado Senate Republicans. Senate Republicans just raised the stakes in the multi-media messaging game under the gold dome. How can Democrats respond? Perhaps with a video of Rep. Mike Foote of Lafayette in…
The $26.8 billion question: How to sell the 2017 budget

Apr 4, 2017

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John Tomasic

Now that the Colorado state budget proposal has appeared and lawmakers are wrangling over the numbers, the political narratives that will be used to sell the budget to voters and to defend against constituent anger in elections to come are taking shape. This year it seems unquestionable that it will be a tougher budget for…
What a difference a year makes: Threat of rural hospital closings shape budget talks

Mar 30, 2017

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John Tomasic

The state senate passed a budget this week that will slash $500 million from hospitals across Colorado, a proposal that has set the halls of the Capitol buzzing and lawmakers considering a new version of a proposal that just a year ago was dismissed as an exhausted nonstarter. The budget passed on a 30-5 vote…
Noonan: Bill envisions high quality education for Colorado … But where’s the money?

Mar 29, 2017

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Paula Noonan

A new bipartisan bill, Achieving a Vision for Education in Colorado, HB17-1287, sets up an advisory board to create a strategic plan for public education, preschool through college, for implementation up to 2030. The bill recognizes that the 21st century world is “fiercely competitive” and that a “world class highly effective twenty-first-century learning system is the…
Dominick Moreno discusses hard budget choices, winning election as a youngster and accidentally finding the panic button

Mar 29, 2017

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Ernest Luning

State Sen. Dominick Moreno, a Commerce City Democrat, has been in office longer than many of his fellow lawmakers but is still the youngest member of the state Senate, a distinction he explores in this week’s episode of “Behind the Politics,” a podcast produced by the Senate Democrats. The 32-year-old member of the Joint Budget Committee also talks about…
Guzman: A solution for our rural hospitals

Mar 20, 2017

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Lucia Guzman

Delta. Montrose. Lincoln. Teller. Fremont. Las Animas. Morgan. Garfield. These are a handful of counties in rural Colorado that are home to hospitals. Hospitals that not only provide access to life-saving health care for residents, but are most likely the area’s largest employer. These hospitals are typically smaller than their urban counterparts, but they are…
Crowder: Colorado’s rural hospitals facing plight

Feb 23, 2017

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Jared Wright

The future of health care has been in the news a lot recently. The intended repeal of the Affordable Care Act, commonly called “Obamacare” has generated more questions than answers. However, one thing is for certain. The upcoming plight of Colorado’s rural hospitals is not in question. Last year, the state Legislature voted not to…