Rocky Mountain Voice

Tag: Health Policy

Colorado Medicaid Chief Resigns Amid Bipartisan Outcry Over Costs And Mismanagement
The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

Colorado Medicaid Chief Resigns Amid Bipartisan Outcry Over Costs And Mismanagement

By Marianne Goodland | The Denver Gazette Colorado’s top Medicaid official stepped down on Monday, just as a bipartisan bloc of state senators prepared to formally urge Gov. Jared Polis to remove her over what they called years of mismanagement, waste and costly errors inside the state’s largest agency. One legislator seeking the resignation of Kim Bimestefer, executive direct or of the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, called the leadership change a “necessary step toward accountability.” Bimestefer had been under fire from critics, who questioned how health officials have remained in their roles amid what they described as mismanagement at the state Medicaid program, which is beset by allegations of fraud, abuse and runaway spending. The program’...
Food Shaming Concerns Delay Colorado Plan to Ban Soda Purchases With Food Stamps
The Colorado Sun, Approved, State

Food Shaming Concerns Delay Colorado Plan to Ban Soda Purchases With Food Stamps

By: Jennifer Brown | The Colorado Sun The SNAP rule change was delayed by a state board after a 7-hour hearing including fierce opposition from the governor’s fellow Democrats, Hunger Free Colorado and Save the Children. A plan to prohibit Coloradans from using food-assistance benefits to buy soda and sugary fruit juices was stalled Friday by a state board after opponents argued it was an overreach that could harm the dignity and autonomy of low-income families. The rule would ban the use of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, called SNAP, to buy soda as well as juices with added sugars or artificial sweeteners. Gov. Jared Polis won approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the “healthy choice” rule in August, but needed...
Colorado Mom Urges Caution for Parents After Son’s Hormone Treatment
IW Features, Approved, Local

Colorado Mom Urges Caution for Parents After Son’s Hormone Treatment

By Neeraja Deshpande | IW Features A Colorado mother trusted the medical “experts” when they prescribed her teenage son estrogen. Now she urges parents to reject gender ideology claims outright and reclaim authority from ideologues. But Michael had already fallen deep into the trenches of gender ideology, possibly with the help of his Denver-area school.  Thinking they would “put the brakes on this,” Burns said she and her husband took Michael to a therapist in their network at a Kaiser Permanente clinic. Unfortunately, then unbeknownst to the Burnses, Kaiser Permanente is one of the greatest offenders in the gender ideology space, having spearheaded medical experimentation on gender-confused minors both as an insurer and as a clinical provider of ca...
Malpractice ruling signals legal reckoning for gender procedures on minors
Rocky Mountain Voice, Approved, Commentary, National

Malpractice ruling signals legal reckoning for gender procedures on minors

By Brian C. Joondeph, M.D. | Commentary, American Thinker A major change in the medical landscape on transgender surgeries on minors arrives, and the press is trying to ignore it. When Fox Varian stood before a New York jury last month and described the moment her bandages were removed after a double mastectomy, her words were stark: “It’s so hard to face that you are disfigured for life.”  What the jury saw was not a political mascot or an abstract policy debate, but a young woman whose body had been permanently altered during adolescence, long before she had the maturity or perspective to grasp the lifelong consequences of that choice. After deliberation, the jury awarded Ms. Varian $2 million in damages, finding that her psychologist and surgeon fai...
Colorado Rejects New CDC Vaccine Schedule, Maintains Existing Requirements for School and Daycare
Washington Examiner, Approved, State

Colorado Rejects New CDC Vaccine Schedule, Maintains Existing Requirements for School and Daycare

By Claire Carter | The Washington Examiner Colorado became the latest state to criticize the newly released federal guidance for childhood vaccines on Tuesday. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment released a statement rejecting the CDC’s new vaccine schedule and said Colorado’s approach “remains grounded in long-standing science, expert consensus, and transparency.”  On Monday, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention implemented a major change in the childhood immunization schedule, reducing the number of vaccines children receive from 17 to 11. READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
House Passes Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Bill Targeting Gender Transition Procedures For Minors
THE HILL, Approved, National

House Passes Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Bill Targeting Gender Transition Procedures For Minors

By Sudiksha Kochi | The Hill The House passed a bill Wednesday sponsored by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) that would criminalize gender-affirming procedures and medical care for minors. Greene had secured a deal with leadership to bring her bill to the floor in exchange for her support of a rule advancing the National Defense Authorization Act last week. It passed 216-211. Three Democrats — Reps. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), Don Davis (D-N.C.) and Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) — voted with most Republicans in favor and four Republicans — Reps. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Gabe Evans (R-Colo.) and Mike Kennedy (R-Utah) — voted with most Democrats against it. “Children are NOT experiments. No more drugs. No more surgeries. No...
Minnesota’s Medicaid Scandal Shows Why Colorado Must Tighten the Guardrails
Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Minnesota’s Medicaid Scandal Shows Why Colorado Must Tighten the Guardrails

By Cory Gaines | Complete Colorado To say Minnesota has had some fraud going on is an understatement. I don’t know that I’ve seen it mentioned much in local media, but it’s a big national story. Colorado should beware taking its turn in this barrel. First, some brief background. Minnesota sought (and received) Medicaid waivers during COVID to use taxpayer dollars to fund things like subsidized housing for recipients, which ended up an impetus for massive fraud. An MPR News article gives some context, but the sheer size of the numbers are what really popped out to me: “According to the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office, DHS [Minnesota Department of Housing Stabilization] had initially predicted the housing stabilization program would cost about $2.6 mill...
Oracle Health and Epic Accused of Helping Hospitals Hide Gender Procedures from Parents
Just The News, Approved, National

Oracle Health and Epic Accused of Helping Hospitals Hide Gender Procedures from Parents

By: Greg Piper | Just the News Oracle and Epic control nearly two-thirds of electronic health records market, and "may be enabling – or even reinforcing – restrictions on parental rights through the way these systems are marketed and customized for clients," Do No Harm warns. As parents fight school districts in the courts to disclose when their children express gender identity at odds with sex, allied with a transgender child psychologist who has repeatedly urged judges to clue in parents, they face a lesser known roadblock to transparency about their children's health: electronic health record systems that lock them out. A report by medical advocacy group Do No Harm said "it appears that healthcare systems are using sexually transmitted infections, mental h...
Abortion Without Limits: Colorado Clinic Offers Procedures ‘for Any Reason’ to 34 Weeks
Breitbart, Approved, Local

Abortion Without Limits: Colorado Clinic Offers Procedures ‘for Any Reason’ to 34 Weeks

By Katherine Hamilton | Breitbart News A new clinic opened in Boulder, Colorado, that offers to abort babies up to 34 weeks of pregnancy for “any reason,” which is ten weeks after most babies can survive outside the womb and roughly six weeks before a baby is considered full-term. The clinic, called RISE Collective, opened in response to the shuttering of the Boulder Abortion Clinic in April, the Daily Mail reported. That facility was operated by 87-year-old abortionist Dr. Warren Hern and was infamous for being one of only a handful of clinics in the United States that performed abortions in the third trimester of pregnancy. Alicia Moreno, the executive director of the RISE Collective, worked at the Boulder Abortion Clinic under Hern. “When the clinic closed we all said we don...
NIH-funded study buried findings of elevated COVID vaccine risks on children
Just The News, Approved, National

NIH-funded study buried findings of elevated COVID vaccine risks on children

By Greg Piper | Just the News NIH-funded study of "long COVID" and reinfection hides findings on risks stratified by vaccination status deep in a supplement, contradicting researchers' conclusions and media narrative that vaccines are the answer. The Trump administration's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put the nail in the coffin of one-size-fits-all COVID-19 vaccine recommendations Monday, updating its children and adult vaccination schedules to encourage physicians, nurses and pharmacists to discuss harms and benefits from vaccination specific to each patient before they get jabbed. Parents may get an incomplete picture from healthcare providers who don't look too closely at federally funded research that promotes indiscriminate COVID jabs for kids, though....