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Colorado news roundup
The weekday Colorado news roundup is a collection of links to news reports and other resources of interest to the Colorado Center on Law and Policy. Listing does not imply endorsement of the content.

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Other news summaries

Grasscatcher, from the National Conference of State Legislatures

Today's Health News, from The Colorado Trust

Colorado daily news roundup, from Stateline

Daily Health Policy Report, from Kaiser Health News

Drug test for public benefits recipients is costly and unfair

Family economic security
Denver Post editorial: Welfare hurdle is costly and unfair
A bill to force applicants to pass a drug test (and pay if they fail) raises costs for no real benefit.

Associated Press via Fort Collins Coloradoan: Unemployment discrimination bill rejected in Colorado
Job postings that state unemployed applicants need not apply will remain legal as a Republican state House committee rejected a discrimination measure.


Health care
Colorado Public News: Medicare online: A frustrating way to find a doctor
In a search for general practice, internal medicine and family doctors throughout the state, Colorado Public News encountered an error-ridden database that often made locating doctors a pursuit in futility.

Longmont Times-Call editorial: Sensible guidelines for insurance
Health insurance premiums are simple to understand. Co-pays and deductibles, a little less so. Co-insurance and out-of-pocket maximums can be more difficult to decipher.


Fiscal policy
Pueblo Chieftain: Council talks half-cent tax revenue options
City Council typically treats Pueblo's half-cent sales tax for economic development as the sacredest cow of all - knowing that city voters traditionally reapprove it every few years as long as the revenue is dedicated to recruiting new employers and jobs.


The national scene
Reuters: U.S. consumer agency to examine bank overdraft fees
The new U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is weighing a crackdown on checking account overdraft fees charged by banks, saying the charges can "inflict serious economic harm" on consumers.

Bloomberg: Obama Readies Plan to Cut Corporate Tax Rate
The Obama administration will propose today reducing the U.S. corporate tax rate to 28 percent from 35 percent along with removing tax breaks for companies to help offset lost revenue, an administration official said.

Kaiser Health News: Feds Jump-Start Health Insurance Co-Ops With Loans
Seven organizations will receive a total of $639 million in federal low-interest loans to launch new, consumer-governed health insurance plans in eight states, the federal government announced Tuesday.


Think tanks
The Urban Institute: The Future of Healthy Families: Transitioning to 2014 and Beyond
If children in California's CHIP program moved to Medicaid, some would benefit and others would suffer, but the balance of gain and loss is unknown. The poorest such children are most likely to benefit and will generally move to Medicaid in 2014. They could be shifted in the near-term, with safeguards to protect access to care and rigorous monitoring. Such monitoring, plus tracking whether the Exchange persuades commercial plans to accept CHIP-level payments to provide CHIP children with CHIP-level coverage, will let the state make a better informed decision, several years hence, about how to cover other CHIP children.

The Commonwealth Institute: The Care Coordination Imperative: Responding to the Needs of People with Chronic Diseases
The changing landscape of health and disease in the 21st century calls for a concerted response from the health care delivery system. That health care consumes 17 percent of U.S. gross domestic product is alarming, but the change in Americans' health status-one of the underlying drivers of costs-is equally staggering. The increasing prevalence of chronic illness among Americans, even as life expectancy grows and the population ages, poses major challenges to the medical profession and the entire health care system.