Good midday, Colorado, and happy First Days of Spring — which, of course, means there’s another snowstorm lurking around the corner. (Though it doesn’t so far look like the monster of last week.) If you need me, I’ll be outside whispering anxiously to my trees that it’s too soon to leaf out.
But lemme tell you about something that might cure your spring slush blues: Trains! What if you could travel up and down the Front Range without having to worry about traffic or ghastly road conditions? What if you never skipped another ski weekend because CDOT’s traffic app showed nothing but red between you and your preferred playgrounds?
Our very own Michael Booth will explore these questions — and a whole bunch more — on April 4 during a live event featuring Front Range Passenger Rail director Andy Karsian and RTD chief Debra Johnson. And even better, not only will you learn a lot about the ongoing efforts to bring passenger rail to life in Colorado — and maybe to the ballot, too — but you will have a chance to ask questions. Let’s be honest, who among us hasn’t sat in Genesee gridlock and not had a few things they’d like to ask a transportation planner?
The event is virtual and FREE; all you have to do is register. And you can do that at this link right here.
We have news this week on fixes to Medicaid and new money for open space preservation. So all aboard, let’s go.
Reporter
TEMP CHECK
HEALTH
Colorado’s Medicaid program vows to fix coverage problems for people with disabilities
Colorado Medicaid officials announced some much-anticipated changes intended to address complaints that the insurance program is erroneously denying care to people with disabilities.
A memo listing fixes to Medicaid’s “long-term services and supports” program, which funds in-home care for people with severe needs, comes after the state program was accused of discrimination. Two agencies — the Colorado Center on Law and Policy and the National Health Law Program — filed a civil rights complaint against Medicaid last month, alleging that delays and convoluted policies were leaving some of Colorado’s most vulnerable people stranded.
The memo, shared with Medicaid recipients last week by the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, laid out a list of actions intended to prevent people from losing services because of computer or paperwork problems.
“We hear you, and we are taking action,” it said.
Medicaid officials said they are helping counties review cases in which people’s services were terminated. Making sure people keep long-term services, which include in-home caregivers for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, is a “top priority,” the memo said.
Other plans are to quickly process a backlog of claims and temporarily pause terminations “for all reasons” for two months after a client’s benefits are set to expire, except for people who have moved out of state or died. If a person’s documentation is still not in order after two months, counties can extend services further by using a “good faith extension,” according to the memo.
The pause on terminations was a request made in the civil rights complaint, which accused Colorado Medicaid of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Dozens of families have complained about losing their benefits for reasons they don’t understand. Many said they received notice that their files were missing documentation, but those notices don’t explain what is missing. Most are parents who are caring for children or adult children 24/7 and rely on help so they have time to work or sleep.
The Medicaid program said the processing delays and wrongful denials are the result of an overwhelmed system — counties across the state are dealing with an increased workload after the end of the federal public health emergency, while at the same time, the state adopted a new IT system and overhauled its structure.
Jennifer Brown | Reporter
MORE HEALTH NEWS
ENVIRONMENT
Tantalizing GOCO trail and park grants hit the ground
A $7 million grant to bring shade and more active recreation to underserved miles of the beloved High Line Canal in northeastern Denver and Aurora.
Cantilever bridges over spectacular portions of Clear Creek Canyon, in an effort to link up a definitive 65-mile Peaks to Plains Trail connecting Denver directly by bike or foot to Loveland Pass.
More than 7 miles of Eagle Valley Trail to complete another spectacular bike and foot path connecting Breckenridge to Aspen without fighting car traffic.
The chance to preserve a legendary “Lost Canyon” near Castle Rock from luxury housing development and connect it to popular Castlewood Canyon State Park.
It’s a heady list of spring gifts for Coloradans as Great Outdoors Colorado returns the peoples’ lottery spending in the form of park and trail legacies. These and a handful of other high-profile preservations are this year’s GOCO Centennial Program investments, announced every five years as part of the agency’s open space mission.
The overall $68 million funding round for Centennial Program projects is the biggest so far, and includes much larger individual chunks than GOCO previously funded. There are three $7 million trail projects in the mix, said GOCO director of programs Chris Yuan-Farrell, while the fund’s previous largest trail investment was a $4.6 million grant.
“It’s pretty apparent that there’s a need to steward these kinds of magnificent, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that don’t really exist elsewhere,” he said.
GOCO and others have heard the criticism that Peaks to Plains trail miles, in particular, are a dubiously hefty investment. The new GOCO grant is to help Jeffco work on just three miles at the Huntsman Gulch area west of Golden. 9News reported the total cost of about 14 Jeffco miles of the trail is $273 million, with Jeffco open space taxes paying 83% of that.
An accessible, wide, color-coordinated concrete trail along sheer cliffs is certainly pricey. Showcasing the canyon without blasting away at the walls or chasing threatened species means expensive hanging bridges and other engineering marvels.
“This is not just building a trail, it’s building a park that is going to have 100 years if not more lifespan,” Yuan-Farrell said. “So … it seems like a pretty solid investment in terms of dollars per year. There’s a lot of factors that if we get beyond this discreet moment-in-time sticker shock, we can start to think about the other aspects of it that makes this such a compelling project.”
With the high expense in mind, GOCO looks whenever possible to local governments and conservation funds to stretch the grants with their own spending. Jeffco has spent millions on other portions of the popular Clear Creek trail. In northeastern Denver and Aurora, the High Line Canal’s private legacy fund will match GOCO spending with millions more.
That metro Denver project highlights how GOCO is meant not just for pristine mountaintops, but for preserving and activating recreation everywhere people want to find it.
The northeastern High Line project “is to create what they’re calling ‘parklets’ all along that 27-ish mile corridor, to build new connections for various community members, so that the experience could be as compelling as it is elsewhere along the canal,” Yuan-Farrell said. “And really just reactivate or activate that corridor and take a disused resource and get people connected.”
Read more about other highlights from GOCO’s Centennial Program round, including another preserved ranch at stunning Snowmass, in coming days at ColoradoSun.com.
Michael Booth | Reporter
MORE CLIMATE NEWS
CHART OF THE WEEK
In Colorado, more than 1 in 10 adults has medical debt in collections, according to an estimate drawn from consumer credit data by the Urban Institute. The median amount in collections is less than $700.
These details are part of some more reporting we are doing on medical debt in conjunction with the Colorado News Collaborative, KFF Health News and newsrooms across the state. Watch for a story coming soon on the landscape of medical debt in Colorado and its particularly heavy weight on communities of color.
Until then, you can click on the map above to go to an interactive version where you can see data for all 50 states. Or you can go to the Urban Institute’s report on debt, which will provide you with county-level data on medical and other kinds of debt.
Section by John Ingold | Reporter
HEAT MAP
CLIMATE
HEALTH
Hey, nice seeing you down here at the finish line! We appreciate you sticking with us, through snow and sun and snake steaks. This newsletter literally wouldn’t exist without you, and, for that, we can’t thank you enough.
Make sure to enjoy some of the sunshine blanketing (most of) the state today. We’ll see you back here next week.
— John & Michael
Corrections & Clarifications
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