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Week of February 2, 2023
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DENVER, COLORADO
A publication of
VOLUME 96 | ISSUE 11
Our in-depth look at the housing crisis
Health care giants form one insurance company Question is who benefits BY JOHN INGOLD THE COLORADO SUN
Racial Inequities: Black Coloradans often face barriers in homeownership Some now look to build equity for future generations BY NINA JOSS AND HALEY LENA NJOSS@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM; HLENA@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
A few years ago, Aurora Warms the Night, an Aurora-based nonprofit serving people who need housing, ran into a challenge when assisting its Black clients in applying for apartments. When
the applicants visited properties, landlords denied their applications. This happened over and over again. So the team decided to take a different approach, sending in White volunteers to check out the apartments first. “I would send one of our employees or people that were White to look at the apartment — to get the pricing, get everything, to make sure everything was available,” said Brian Arnold, who was executive director of the group at
the time five years ago. “After that, we did the application online and sent it in without them being able to see the person.” Once the application got approved, the team at Aurora Warms the Night would let the real estate agents see the client was Black. Arnold said this process worked almost every time and became the organization’s own way of making a dent in the discrimination that people of color may face, but find
By some measures, the Denver metro area has one of the most competitive hospital markets in the country. Large health systems duke it out every year for supremacy in the multibillion-dollar marketplace. But now, two of those heavyweight health systems — locally based UCHealth and Utah-based Intermountain Healthcare — have decided to … cooperate? The systems earlier this month announced plans to form what is known as a “clinically integrated network.” While that may sound like the hospital giants are planning to combine resources on the clinical side, it’s actually more akin to forming one giant insurance network. The health systems will remain separate, and they will continue to compete against one another to attract patients. The new network will bring together roughly 700 primary care physicians, hundreds of clinics and dozens of hospitals — all available and in network for consumers whose health insurance contracts with the new clinically integrated network. And, not coincidentally, the systems announced that Intermountain’s SelectHealth insurance
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INSIDE: VOICES: PAGE 12 | CALENDAR: PAGE 11
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