Press Releases

Hanna offers prescription for universal healthcare
Steven Graham - Jeffco News
1/8/04

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Aside from energy, local legislators also seem to be very focused on health care. Jefferson County Sen. Deanna Hanna, D-Lakewood, and Reps. Betty Boyd, D-Lakewood, and Ramey Johnson, R-Golden, each listed health-related proposals they hope to pass this legislative session.

Hanna had the most comprehensive proposal. She hopes to convene a health-care reform panel by July to discuss the options for universal health care access in Colorado.

On a less ambitious front, she hopes to create a universal credential form for medical professionals. She said the industry could save up to $42 million each year by avoiding stacks of different forms to maintain current credentials.

Hanna’s third proposal would give women the universal right to breastfeed their babies in public. She said she often hears stories of women asked to go into a bathroom to breastfeed.

“Nobody likes to eat in the bathroom,” she said.

Boyd said she hopes to see more assistance at hospitals for rape and sexual assault victims. She will propose that hospitals be required to tell women about the controversial morning-after pill. She said she will stop short of proposing free emergency contraception because she said the bill would be hard enough to pass without an attached fiscal mandate.

Johnson’s health-care proposal stemmed from a personal checkup. She said a doctor’s assistant introduced herself as a nurse even though she was not a credentialed nurse. She is proposing a “nurse title protection bill” that those who call themselves nurses must be credentialed nurses.