Opinion: At last, a way to compare prices for hospital procedures
By Bob Semro
How much does a knee replacement cost? A Caesarean section? For years in Colorado, it was almost impossible to know.
Opinion: Employers should welcome health care price transparency
By Donna Marshal
Employers across Colorado, whose health insurance costs have doubled over the past decade and could easily do so again, should become familiar with a new website called Colorado Medical Price Compare. For the first time ever, it provides online, publicly available access to both price and quality information for select services performed at hospitals across the state.
Wild price variations for giving birth, hip, knee surgeries
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon
The cost of giving birth in 2010 was so exorbitant in Steamboat Springs that Kathleen Huron and her husband, both teachers, opted to have their second daughter at home with a midwife.
Opinion: Inadequate justification for proposed hikes in health insurance rates
By Matthew Valeta
The Colorado Consumer Health Initiative (CCHI) has given close scrutiny to nine health insurance plan filings that will impact approximately 98,628 policyholders in Colorado. Far too often, insurance companies try to pass premium increases onto consumer without justifying why these higher costs exist.
Opinion: Churning for dollars — There ought to be a law
By Donna Smith Remember Liz Fowler? She was the Wellpoint executive who took a brief sabbatical from her direct paychecks from the private health insurance industry to write the Affordable Care Act while working for Senator Max Baucus. Once that project was wrapped up, Liz went to work briefly for the U.S. Department of Health…