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Vail Daily letter: Not a good grade

Jill E. Kovacevich
Avon, CO Colorado
letters@vaildaily.com

It is imperative we understand that it is not a good report card for Eagle County to rank 21st in clinical care access in Colorado as reported in the Vail Daily story “Study: County residents live long and healthy lives.”

Ranking 21st should be considered a poor grade.

This ranking may be directly related to cost and affordability of care (in Eagle County) and lack of enough primary care doctors and not just for the uninsured. The Colorado Trust in its 2010 study titled “The Magnitude of the Underinsured in Colorado” reported 51 percent of those surveyed (including the insured, uninsured and underinsured folks with high deductibles) stated that cost was a direct barrier to accessing healthcare.



In Eagle County, access to affordable healthcare is a particular problem. This study may place our healthy population in Eagle County at No. 2, but our healthcare system failed at No. 21. This coupled with a poor primary care doctor to patient ratio, it should be evident we have a lot of hard work to do to meet the needs of our patient community.

In reality, No. 2 should indicate we have a healthier population to begin with and we still did not get a passing grade for our heatlhcare system. It’s like getting a B in one class and a D-plus in another. We should expect better results. And this among our probable extensive budget cuts in education countywide and just about every other program imaginable.

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Keep in mind Douglas County ranked No. 1 in healthy population and No. 4 in healthcare access. Now that’s a good grade.


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