After traveling all over the world on missions to help people walk again, a Colorado surgical team stayed home this time to donate free hip and knee replacements to nine people in Colorado.
Five years of high unemployment have driven another 216,000 Coloradans into such dire straits that they qualify for Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor.
That jump – to a total of 608,000 people in major financial trouble – has cost Colorado’s budget an extra $1.4 billion since 2007. The continuing rise in the cost of Medicaid is the main reason the governor proposed cutting school funding again this year.
The fighting in Washington over potential cuts to Medicare has created worry and uncertainty at hospitals throughout Colorado, particularly in rural areas.
The number of Coloradans without health insurance has risen by 22 percent in the last two years, with 829,000 residents now uninsured, according to a survey released Tuesday.
