Medicaid

Medicaid's new assessment for disabled children could hinder instead of help

Health-care fraud is big business. What are the feds doing about it?

Artist Estee Fox is in search of a pretty vagina

Talk about art on the cutting-edge! On Friday, February 1, the show Estee Fox: fox tales ft. 7 and marbles -- an eclectic mix of videos, paintings and live music -- will open at Edge Gallery, complete with a screening and discussion of Fox's performance piece "How to: A Pretty Vagina." As the artist ... More >>

Alternative therapies: Florida program similar to Colorado pilot saved money, improved health

Colorado has a new Medicaid pilot program that will cover the cost of acupuncture, massage therapy and chiropractic services for 67 people with spinal cord injuries. As explained in our feature story, "Body Movin'," the program's chief architect is a determined thirty-year-old named Chanda Hinton Le ... More >>

Alternative therapy could be the next step for those with spinal cord injuries

Photos: Chanda Hinton Leichtle is out to change how Medicaid treats spinal cord injuries

Photos: Chanda Hinton Leichtle is out to change how Medicaid treats spinal cord injuries

The fourteen-year-old boy who accidentally shot nine-year-old Chanda Hinton Leichtle in 1991 thought the rifle was unloaded. It wasn't, and the bullet severed her spinal cord and left her paralyzed below the chest. This week's feature, "Body Movin'," tells how Hinton Leichtle became an advocate for ... More >>

Gazette's Wayne Laugesen on why he thinks Planned Parenthood covers up statutory rape

Update: This weekend, Colorado Springs Gazette editorial page editor Wayne Laugesen published a scathing piece in which he argued that Planned Parenthood was likely worse than Penn State when it came to covering up sexual assaults on children; our previous coverage is below. Laugesen explains the ti ... More >>

Supreme Court health care ruling: Advocates praise it, tout Colorado reforms

Big news today for Barack Obama and, you know, tens of millions of Americans across the country: The Supreme Court of the United States has finally issued its ruling on the Affordable Care Act, essentially deciding to keep most of it intact. And advocates in Colorado are cheering the news, saying it ... More >>

Civil unions stalemate: Fallout affects small businesses, poor, others

The Republican House leadership's successful effort to block passage of a civil unions bill yesterday, orchestrated by Speaker Frank McNulty, could well have aftershocks stretching to the fall elections. And lawmakers who opted for inaction may be facing much more than the wrath of liberals and acti ... More >>

PHAMALY's Quadrapalooza is homegrown...and very funny

Denver Children's Advocacy Center, others win federal grant to educate families about Medicaid

​ The Denver Children's Advocacy Center has won a $50,000 federal grant to educate parents and pregnant women about Medicaid and other health insurance for low-income families. The grant is the second such award for the center, which serves children who have been sexually abused, neglected or ... More >>

Circumcision: Colorado to stop Medicaid coverage of snipping newborn boys' foreskin

Flickr​ A week from today, Colorado is cutting -- pun intended -- Medicaid funding for circumcisions. According to the Associated Press, the state will join seventeen others in making the cost-saving move, which will likely please circumcision opponents, such as Paul Russo, the subject of a 19 ... More >>

Support for Mission Supports

Local Spanish language soap opera takes on obesity

​Long-lost evil twin? An intergenerational love affair between family members who don't know they're related? A romance forged via ESP between two people in a coma? As long as the dramatic music was right, we wouldn't blink if we saw one of those absurd scenarios unfold on a daily soap. But ... More >>

Mexican Macro-economics

Whose Dole Is It, Anyway?

Mike Fallon, Republican candidate in District 1, takes on Diana DeGette, seeks cure for Congress

Mike Fallon​It's the middle of the afternoon and Mike Fallon is at Pint's Pub. The Republican candidate for Colorado's 1st Congressional District wasn't driven to the bottle by the rigors of campaigning, however. Rather, he's holding the first in a series of town-hall meetings that will take ... More >>

Marijuana debate: Should indigent patients wait months before earning state benefits?

​Which medical marijuana patients deserve financial assistance -- and how long should they wait for it? This question arose during debate over House Bill 1284, part of the state's new package of medical marijuana laws. Now, the health department's new medical marijuana advisory group is tryin ... More >>

Denver Health breaks ground on a new adolescent psych unit

​Denver Health broke ground this week on a four-story building that by late next year will be home to an adolescent psychiatric facility. Although the psych ward's new digs won't be a whole lot bigger, Denver Health officials say they will be a lot better. In terms of hard numbers, the facili ... More >>

John Hickenlooper welcomes Arizona's illegal immigrants: Kenny Be's Worst-Case Scenario

​ Mayor and (nearly) Governor John Hickenlooper says, "Welcome Illegal Immigrants!" What benefits will they receive? Look below to find out:

John Suthers, twelve other attorneys general, team up to kill health-care law: Read the lawsuit

"The Florida guy had to write the whole thing...."​Yesterday afternoon, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers announced that he would be joining "nearly a dozen" fellow AGs across the country in suing to stop the just-signed health-care law from taking effect. Since then, the number of bandw ... More >>

$1.5 million federal grant to help adults with disabilities in Colorado find jobs

An image from the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing website​ The Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (known affectionately as "hick-puff") didn't win any popularity contests this past summer when it unveiled changes in the way Medicaid payments would b ... More >>

How can child abuse best be prevented in Colorado? Officials disagree...

Chandler Grafner, seven, died of starvation at the hands of his caregivers in 2007.​The debate over how to serve the state's neediest citizens, including abused children, has come to a head in the weeks since a governor-appointed committee recommended that the state should take over county res ... More >>

Abortion rights a hill Diana DeGette's willing to die on in healthcare debate

Will Nancy Pelosi get so mad at Diana DeGette that she actually blinks?​Just because the House of Representatives passed a healthcare bill this weekend doesn't mean it'll stay passed. Denver congresswoman Diana DeGette is leading a group of reproductive-rights supporters who are mad as hell th ... More >>

Colorado's share of Pfizer drug-marketing settlement a drop in the bucket

John Suthers.​Colorado is set to receive more than $3.5 million from drug leviathan Pfizer in relation to two separate settlements. According to the office of Colorado Attorney General John Suthers, the largest of the two deals is related to allegations that the company "improperly marketed fo ... More >>

From the week of August 27, 2009

From the week of August 27, 2009

Denver Blogs: Call it a comeback

​ The blogosphere is our sanctuary. The Denver housing market is rebounding like Jessica Simpson. (That is, if you consider Colt Brennan a solid rebound). (5280) This is sort of meta, but: Melanie Asmar hits the radio to talk about last week's cover story on Medicaid cuts. Go, girl! (Colorad ... More >>

Colorado's new Medicaid funding plan will leave disabled adults on the outside

Death Sentence

A bureaucratic loophole limits halfway house residents' access to health care, making it harder to survive on the outside.

Get Lost!

These troubled teens found themselves at Lost and Found. But now the program is finding itself out of options.

Switch Hitter

Attorney Jay Reinan made his name defending nursing homes. Now he's out to expose them.

The Centers of the Storm

Are we having funds yet?

Nowhere Boy

His biological parents didn't want him -- but to get him the help he needs, his adoptive parents must give him up.

Letters to the Editor

From the week of April 10, 2003

In Sickness and in Wealth

Medicaid patients could be facing death by a thousand cuts.

Letters to the Editor

From the week of February 28, 2002

A Dying Wish

Peggy Quinn wanted to make death easier on the terminally ill, but she's made life hard on everyone else.

Mind Games

The squeeze in managed mental-health care is choking patients and providers alike.

Ready, Willing and Disabled

The state's treatment of the developmentally disabled isn't broken. So why does Colorado want to fix it?

The Denver Private School District

Denver Public Schools considers privatizing its health and social services.

Survey Says

The state health department cracks down on inadequate care at one nursing home.

Eternally Yours

Life as Gloria Lamar knew it ended almost five years ago. But her heart beats on.

Dying for Dollars

The nursing home industry is earning healthy profits. But its clients may be paying the price.

Captive Audience

Roll out the gurneys! Hospitals fight for the right to treat prisoners.

Clinical Depression

University Hospital abruptly pulls its money out of clinics that treat the poor.

Mental Anguish

Rescuing the mentally ill has brought millions to the Mental Health Corporation of Denver--as well as complaints of coercion, mismanagement and neglect.

Letters

Running Out of Patients

Denver General gets ready to launch a downscale marketing campaign.

UNHEALTHY COMPETITION?

A NEW, HARD-SELL HMO STORMS INTO COLORADO, HOPING TO SCOOP UP MEDICAID BUSINESS.