Colorado Ahead of the Health Reform Game
Denver Post
Children's CEO, Jim Shmerling contributed guest commentary to the Denver Post on the subject of Colorado's progress toward thoughtful health reform.
"Colorado's health care reform plan works directly with patients, doctors, nurses, clinics and hospitals to build a sustainable system that will continue to help the state's residents stay healthy long into the future," the commentary states.
The following are a few of Colorado's accomplishments in health care reform:
- 100,000 uninsured Colorado children have received quality care coverage for three years
- Grand Junction has implemented a nonprofit plan that guarantees prenatal care for every pregnant woman and has opened a patient-centered clinic for the uninsured, using a community-wide Health Information Technology Exchange
- The Colorado Health Care Affordability Act passed, which provides coverage to more than 100,000 mothers, children, people with disabilities and other uninsured residents.
The commentary states that, moving forward, the following points will be crucial to additional successful reform:
- "We need to work together to deliver better value for each health care dollar;
- We need to create a culture of health with a focus on healthy living and wellness; and
- We need to expand access to basic health care that is affordable."
Shmerling, along with his co-contributors to the commentary - Bill Ritter, Colorado's 41st Governor and Steve ErkenBrack, president of Rocky Mountain Health Plans - note that health care transformation cannot be done by Congress alone. They call the community to work together to improve health care's cost, quality and access. They ask that health care reform not be a partisan fight, but a Colorado commitment.
Read the full commentary in the Denver Post or in Grand Junction's Daily Sentinel.
