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Join us in celebrating the passage of HB23-1071, a bill which certifies psychologists to prescribe and administer psychotropic medications

Colorado legislature OKs allowing psychologists to prescribe medication

Colorado legislature OKs allowing psychologists to prescribe medication

Colorado legislature OKs allowing psychologists to prescribe medication

Join us in celebrating the passage of HB23-1071, a bill which certifies psychologists to prescribe and administer psychotropic medications (which treat depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, and other mental health conditions). The bill now goes to @GovofCO for his consideration. 

This bill is welcome news, as it is a bipartisan, commonsense measure that will actually connect Coloradans to the care they need in a faster and more cost efficient manner than today’s system currently allows. (Now, psychologists can’t prescribe but must refer patients to a psychiatrist or medical doctor for prescriptions. This bill will change that.)

Thanks to the Colorado Psychological Association, Colorado Counseling Association, National Association of Social Workers, Colorado Center on Law and Policy, Colorado Consumer Health Initiative, Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition, AARP and Healthier Colorado for backing this important bill. 🙌

#CoPolitics #CoLeg 

More here via @Colo_Politics

Read more on Colorado Politics>>>
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Chain 2024 Action Agenda

CHAIN 2024 ACTION AGENDA

In 2024, CHAIN (Consumer Health Advocacy & Information Network) will expand efforts and outreach for finding common ground on common sense health care solutions. Our key action items include:

SUPPORT HEALTHCARE CONSUMER RIGHTS

Unfair and uncompetitive practices limit patient care and drive-up healthcare costs. CHAIN will work to reform or curtail these and other strategies that some healthcare entities use for their benefit but not necessarily for patients: 

    • Stem the unchecked payment of ‘rebates’ by drug makers to PBMs and insurance companies in order to gain approval for drugs to be covered and distributed. Can Rebate Reform Help Consumers?
    • Oppose the growing misuse of prior authorization by health insurance providers to deny critically needed care.  
    • Push back on the proliferation of high deductible health plans and faltering of traditional health insurance to provide adequate coverage.    

https://www.pacificresearch.org/new-pri-series-to-show-how-flawed-u-s-health-insurance-system-inflates-costs-decreases-quality-and-reduces-health-outcomes/  

    • End the indefensible practice used by insurance companies and Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) to disallow drug maker assistance coupons from counting towards patient deductibles and out-of-pocket spending (called a co-pay accumulator). https://infusioncenter.org/understanding-copay-accumulators-who-really-benefits/   

       

    • Advocate for legislation that requires large group health insurance plans to cover biomarker testing, which is a nationally recognized clinical practice that allows physicians to more accurately determine the appropriate level of care – often called “precision medicine” – while reducing the need for multiple biopsies and other more invasive screening.

PROMOTE PRIVATE INNOVATION OVER GOVERMENT INTERVENTION

The Coronavirus vaccine and overall response proved indisputably that American innovation and technology leads the world.  Massive and ill-conceived takeovers of parts of the American healthcare system threaten that innovation.  CHAIN will fight to protect America’s scientific leadership and push back on the kinds of government overreach that threaten the very lifeblood of cures and treatments, including: 

    • Systemic healthcare takeover proposals such as single-payer insurance plans or drug-price control mechanisms;
    • Policies such as HB 1 or the Medicare drug negotiation provisions in the Building a Better America Act that substitutes open competition for socialized health care policies;
    • Nationalized drug pricing programs – as in Canada, Britain and other countries – that compel biotech companies to sell at below market costs which dampens life-saving innovation and compromises patient access;
    • Push for alternative approaches like the Reduced Costs and Continued Cares Act (RCCCA).

FOSTER POLICY ACCOUNTABILITY & TRANSPARENCY

Too often, well-intended health care policies end up health care travesties for the very people the policies are intended to help.  CHAIN will highlight the successes and failures in government healthcare initiatives and endeavor to spotlight practices already benefiting patients: 

    • Restore transparency and accountability to the $29b federal 340B drug program, designed to help underserved patients but now has veered off course into filling the coffers of healthcare providers. 
    • Facilitate conversations and awareness around practices such as value-based pricing, which bases the cost of prescription drugs on outcomes delivered.
    • Call “time out” on proposals to import drugs from Canada or other nations, a policy that has cost Coloradans $2m since passage in 2020 and wasted millions more in federal resources while producing nothing in the way of savings for consumers. 
    • Continue speaking out against Prescription Drug Affordability Board (PDAB) — an unproven and costly policy that experts say will compromise access to life saving medicines.

HIGHLIGHT SCIENTIFIC & POLICY BREAKTHROUGHS

Coloradans can rightfully take pride in a burgeoning bioscience community that creates scientific breakthroughs in health care.  Here and across the country, world-leading American scientists work to bring cures and treatments for our most devastating diseases.  Simultaneously, policy experts continue to research ways to provide better health care with increasing cost of compromising access.  CHAIN joins other science and research-based organizations supporting these efforts to:  
    • Advance the use of biosimilar drugs to lower the overall cost and spend on prescription medicines. Can Rebate Reform Help Consumers?
    • Facilitate conversations and awareness around practices such as value-based pricing, which bases the cost of prescription drugs on outcomes delivered.
    • Highlight emerging practices such as Pfizer’s recently enacted pledge to refund patients if their new lung cancer drug does not perform as intended.
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How Bennet will help combat ‘superbugs’ in a post-COVID world

Christine MacBrayne

How Bennet will help combat 'superbugs' in a post-COVID world

Christine MacBrayne

Christine MacBrayne

The early days of the COVID-19 pandemic sparked widespread alarm as to how infectious diseases spread. For most of us, COVID-19 was the first pandemic we lived through. Never had a sneeze or a cough from someone within six feet of us felt so dangerous and potentially infectious, or even deadly.

Public health experts and medical professionals like myself have learned a lot since COVID halted our day-to-day lives. The lessons learned are helping America’s infectious disease community identify and address other vulnerabilities in our health care system, leading to a rapidly growing recognition of the next new major threat in the United States healthcare system.

This threat is ‘superbugs.’

Read more on Colorado Politics>>>
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Blackstone Plants Its Flag in Boulder, Colorado, an Emerging Biotech Hub

Blackstone

Blackstone Plants Its Flag in Boulder, Colorado, an Emerging Biotech Hub

Blackstone

A unit of real-estate company Blackstone Inc. is acquiring a sprawling life-sciences and office campus in Boulder, Colo., the latest sign that the city at the base of the Rocky Mountains is emerging as a hub for the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.

Blackstone’s BioMed Realty Trust Inc., a real-estate owner that focuses on life science and tech buildings, is paying more than $600 million for Flatiron Park, a 22-building complex. BioMed Realty plans to invest another $200 million in the property, in part toward converting traditional office space to labs targeted at new and existing Boulder life-sciences companies.

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Chain 2022 Action Agenda

CHAIN 2022 ACTION AGENDA

In 2022, CHAIN (Colorado Health Advocacy & Information Network) will expand efforts and outreach for finding common ground on common sense health care solutions. Our key action items include:

SUPPORT HEALTHCARE CONSUMER RIGHTS

Unfair and uncompetitive practices limit patient care and drive-up healthcare costs. CHAIN will work to reform or curtail these and other strategies that some healthcare entities use for their benefit but not necessarily for patients: 

    • Stem the unchecked payment of ‘rebates’ by drug makers to PBMs and insurance companies in order to gain approval for drugs to be covered and distributed. Can Rebate Reform Help Consumers? – CHAIN (betterhealthcareco.org)
    • Oppose the growing misuse of prior authorization by health insurance providers to deny critically needed care.  
    • Push back on the proliferation of high deductible health plans and faltering of traditional health insurance to provide adequate coverage.    

https://www.pacificresearch.org/new-pri-series-to-show-how-flawed-u-s-health-insurance-system-inflates-costs-decreases-quality-and-reduces-health-outcomes/  

PROMOTE PRIVATE INNOVATION OVER GOVERMENT INTERVENTION

The Coronavirus vaccine and overall response proved indisputably that American innovation and technology leads the world.  Massive and ill-conceived takeovers of parts of the American healthcare system threaten that innovation.  CHAIN will fight to protect America’s scientific leadership and push back on the kinds of government overreach that threaten the very lifeblood of cures and treatments, including: 

    • Systemic healthcare takeover proposals such as single-payer insurance plans or drug-price control mechanisms;
    • Policies such as Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s HB 1 or the Medicare drug negotiation provisions in the Building a Better America Act that substitutes open competition for socialized health care policies;
    • Nationalized drug pricing programs – as in Canada, Britain and other countries – that compel biotech companies to sell at below market costs which dampens life-saving innovation and compromises patient access;
    • Push for alternative approaches like the Reduced Costs and Continued Cares Act (RCCCA) from moderate Congressional democrats, the sensible alternative to H.R. 3 that is designed to lower costs without trampling on American innovation.

FOSTER POLICY ACCOUNTABILITY & TRANSPARENCY

Too often, well-intended health care policies end up health care travesties for the very people the policies are intended to help.  CHAIN will highlight the successes and failures in government healthcare initiatives and endeavor to spotlight practices already benefiting patients: 

    • Restore transparency and accountability to the $29b federal 340B drug program, designed to help underserved patients but now has veered off course into filling the coffers of healthcare providers. 
    • Facilitate conversations and awareness around practices such as value-based pricing, which bases the cost of prescription drugs on outcomes delivered.  
    • Highlight emerging practices such as Pfizer’s recently enacted pledge to refund patients if their new lung cancer drug does not perform as intended. 
    • Call “time out” on proposals to import drugs from Canada or other nations, a policy that has cost Coloradans $2m since passage in 2020 and wasted millions more in federal resources while producing nothing in the way of savings for consumers. 
    • Continue speaking out against Colorado’s Prescription Drug Affordability board (PDAB) — an unproven and costly policy that experts say will compromise access to life saving medicines.

HIGHLIGHT SCIENTIFIC & POLICY BREAKTHROUGHS

Coloradans can rightfully take pride in a burgeoning bioscience community that creates scientific breakthroughs in health care.  Here and across the country, world-leading American scientists work to bring cures and treatments for our most devastating diseases.  Simultaneously, policy experts continue to research ways to provide better health care with increasing cost of compromising access.  CHAIN joins other science and research-based organizations supporting these efforts to:  

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Do we have a pulse on this? Rep Jodeh is in Aurora

Rep Iman Jodeh
Rep Iman Jodeh

“Our bill is essentially a consumer protection bill, making common-sense reforms that will bring integrity and fairness to our health care system and save Coloradans taking expensive medications up to $1,000 a year. 

First, this bill will immediately reduce out-of-pocket prescription costs for Coloradans and prevent insurance companies from pocketing the billions of dollars in prescription drug rebates meant to help Colorado patients pay for their medicine”

https://sentinelcolorado.com/1gridoped/rep-iman-jodeh-our-plan-to-make-health-care-dependable-and-affordable

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Supporting Long Overdue Colorado Healthcare Consumer Rights

Supporting Long Overdue Colorado Healthcare Consumer Rights

The year 2022 promises exciting and substantive opportunities to bring better health care to Coloradans.  Maybe the most important of these is the discussion around a Colorado Consumer Health Bill of Rights.  Similar initiatives have sprung up in other states, indicative of the need to put consumers front and center in the health care debate.  It is long past time that consumer needs take precedence over the financial interests of health care corporations.  We expect more to come very soon on this critical effort. 

Kavita V. Nair

Kavita V. Nair

LET PATIENTS BENEFIT FROM PRESCRIPTION DRUG REFORM

“Coloradans continue to struggle to pay for their prescription medications. The largest yearly survey of Colorado households conducted by the Colorado Health Institute found that one in five Coloradans skipped health-care services due to cost concerns in 2021. Of the almost 10% of Coloradans who didn’t fill a prescription due to cost, 40% said their health declined.”

Read the full op-ed at: https://www.coloradopolitics.com/opinion/let-patients-benefit-from-prescription-drug-reform/article_36587002-c1e0-11ec-b2b8-579165e42efe.html

Rep Iman Jodeh

St. Rep. Iman Jodeh (D-Arapahoe)

LOWER OUT OF POCKET COSTS AND FIGHT BACK AGAINST COST SHIFTING

“Our bill is essentially a consumer protection bill, making common-sense reforms that will bring integrity and fairness to our health care system and save Coloradans taking expensive medications up to $1,000 a year. 

First, this bill will immediately reduce out-of-pocket prescription costs for Coloradans and prevent insurance companies from pocketing the billions of dollars in prescription drug rebates meant to help Colorado patients pay for their medicine”

https://sentinelcolorado.com/1gridoped/rep-iman-jodeh-our-plan-to-make-health-care-dependable-and-affordable

EMPOWER CONSUMERS AND LESSEN THE STRANGLEHOLD OF INSTITUTIONAL INTERESTS

Too little is being done in Colorado and across the country to put more power in the hands of consumers. Out of pocket costs and ‘skimpy coverage plans’ rob from consumers and oftentimes fail to deliver on the care people need.

The one positive piece of news from the challenges of the global pandemic is the transformative migration to digital health care. Practically overnight, consumers and providers discovered that many aspects of care can be delivered in totally different ways.

We need to take this disruption and convert it into a complete rethinking of how healthcare is provided that centers on the consumer, not the monied institutions that for too long have controlled healthcare policies.

LOWER OUT OF POCKET COSTS AND FIGHT BACK AGAINST COST SHIFTING

According to a new poll, Americans would like to see Congress focus more on reducing the overall costs of health care coverage such as premiums, deductibles, and copays (71%) over reducing the costs of prescription drugs (29%). This extends across party lines; 73% of Democrats and 64% of Republicans would like to see Congress focus on reducing overall costs of coverage.

And it’s no wonder. According to various sources, total out of pocket costs for families in 2018 exceeded $7,500 per year. We all have to be wondering what the point of insurance is if we have to pay upwards of $8,000 before any coverage kicks in.

There are scores of ideas available for Colorado lawmakers to consider that don’t involve draconian measures like setting prices or capping revenues. CHAIN will continue fighting for ways to directly lower out-of-pocket expenses and clamp down on the kneejerk response of shifting costs to consumers by providers whenever changes in the market occur.