Courier View Pikes Peak
Pikes Peak 10.30.13
Teller County, Colorado • Volume 52, Issue 44
Fading Fast
October 30, 2013
75 cents
A Colorado Community Media Publication
ourtellercountynews.com ‘This is a much more complicated purchase than buying a T-shirt at gap.com.’ Ben Davis, the director of Connect for Health Colorado
Healthcare exchange off to an up, down start Colorado has its own healthcare exchange With early snow the preceding week in the high country, color was fading fast in many locations. Warm days toward the end of the week, however, slowed the process once again. Photo by Rob Carrigan
Golden Bell welcomes warriors Retreats give soldiers emotional support By Pat Hill
phill@ourcoloradonews.com In a time when many of America’s soldiers return from the battlefields with post-traumatic stress disorder, a time when 22 veterans die by suicide every day, Donna Finicle of Woodland Park is a guardian angel. Founder of Welcome Home, Warrior, Finicle, along with Kay Castle, Doloretta Barber and a team of volunteers, hosts retreats for soldiers, veterans and their families. “The retreats are designed to help our military reconnect with help and support,” she said. “We want them to have quality time with their families.” After nine retreats, the most recent this month at Golden Bell in Divide, Finicle has changed her approach to providing emotional support. “We’re doing more therapeutic things,” she said. “We are finding that, over time, families are having more trouble after these multiple deployments. It’s not good.” In conjunction with Aspen Pointe, the retreat offers art therapy as well as volunteer counselors from the peer-navi-
Nature walks in the woods around Golden Bell in Divide are a vital part of the retreats for active-duty soldiers, veterans and their families hosted by Welcome Home, Warrior. Courtesy photos
Soldiers, veterans and their families enjoyed a weekend retreat at Golden Bell in Divide in October. gator program. “The program is veterans helping veterans make the transition to civilian life,” Finicle said.
The retreat in October began Friday night with a drumming circle to enhance the calming and centering mood of the
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weekend. On Saturday, the participants are welcome to take a nature walk through the woods led by a group from Westcliffe that includes a naturalist/forest ranger and several musicians. In the afternoon, the parents are treated to a spa day, with manicures, pedicures and facials provided by Annette Bright’s A Cut Above the Clouds, a salon in Woodland Park. “They are marvelously wonderful to help our families relax,” Finicle said. Anne Stratton and Robert Moberly also provide Reiki therapies. “Reiki is so non-invasive,” she said. “Reiki calms them down; a lot of these guys don’t like to be touched. They’re very locked up and on guard.” Saturday night the retreat features a campfire with S’mores and a sing-along with “The Blooming Bush Women” of Westcliffe. The work of WHW has reached as far as Alaska where the leader of a team providing services to veterans, many of them involved in domestic-violence cases, traveled to Woodland Park. “They came to be mentored by us,” Finicle said. Finicle credits WHW volunteers Doloretta and Bob Barber for their Yellow Ribbon campaign for helping to fund the retreat. Other donors to the nonprofit organization include the Community Investment Fund and the Cripple Creek & Victor Mining Co. Two area churches promote tithing for the organization, Mountain View United Methodist and Our Lady of the Woods Catholic churches; in addition to private donations. Seventeen military families attended the retreat that offered free child care.
By Danny Summers
Dsummers@ourcoloradonews.com Colorado is not off to the best of the start when it comes to people signing up for the Affordable Care Act. According to officials with Connect for Health Colorado, only 226 people signed up for the ACA during the first week of enrollment this month. “It’s going really well,” said Ben Davis, the director of the Colorado-run healthcare exchange Connect for Health Colorado. Colorado is one of 14 states running its own healthcare exchange. The state spent $21 million marketing the exchange. Most of the $21 million came from federal grants. The bulk of the advertising was spent on television and radio ads in both English and Spanish, and billboards at Denver Broncos football games. “Look, if you spent $21 million on a bake sale and sold 10 dozen muffins, that would be a complete disaster,” Republican Rep. Cory Gardner told the Associated Press. Colorado hopes to enroll 136,000 people in health insurance programs through Connect for Health Colorado by the end of 2014. That goal will never be met at the current pace of enrollments. So far, Colorado has signed up less than half the number of people in seven days as Rhode Island did in three days. Kentucky, which is also running its own healthcare exchange, enrolled 18,000 people in its healthcare program, commonly known as Obamacare, by Oct. 9. Colorado has about 350,000 uninsured residents who aren’t eligible for Medicare. “This is a much more complicated purchase than buying a T-shirt at gap.com,” Davis said. “We expect people to take their time and really weigh their options, and that’s what they’re doing.” Colorado’s health exchange website experienced technical glitches and error messages, but officials said they were being addressed. The Colorado website seems to be performing better than the federal website that is being used in 36 states. According to Adam Fox with Colorado Consumer Health Initiative, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, during the first week the Colorado exchange logged 162,941 unique visitors. Of those, 18,174 accounts were created with 226 shoppers that purchased plans. If shoppers are unable to finish the application process or aren’t able to purchase a plan on line, they must call one of the marketplace’s customer service centers. The largest center is in Colorado Springs at the El Paso County government offices on Garden of the Gods Road.