Governor Polis' Department of Labor bungles while both he and his Department of Health Care Policy & Financing publicly lie.
How are we supposed to problem solve if we can't get good information?
Our state's Labor Department--yes, in case you wondered, it's the same Labor Department that STILL struggles to manage to get unemployment payments out--messed up in its calculations recently and this led to faulty data being given to the Feds and unemployment numbers.
To make things worse, they aren't sure when they'll be able to fix the problem that's causing the bad numbers nor will they really even countenance that there's a problem.
Quoting the CPR article below:
"At this point, Colorado’s labor department can’t say when they’ll be able to collect it accurately. The department spokesperson said recent numbers are still reliable, even though they contain 'far more incomplete data than usual that required estimation.'”
It should be noted that the second sentence above was not, in fact, written by a Polis spokesperson even though that was my first impression; Polis declined to comment here.
Right now, this is just one quarterly report, but if they don't fix the problem, it won't stay that way.
This brings to mind a bigger issue at stake and that is the reliability of the information we get from both our government and our press. So far, CPR is the only outlet I know of that has covered this (and who covered the earlier problem with unemployment numbers a while back). Many other outlets in the popular mainstream press treat the state's numbers as gospel.
We can't have meaningful discussions, and we can't problem solve if we don't have reliable information on the problem. Our labor dept, our governor (state's chief executive in charge of this dept) ought to be taking this more seriously and ought to be out in front on this problem making sure everyone knows where there are problems and where there aren't.
Unfortunately, I gather from the article that the dept will be headed in the opposite way as, with the departure of the current dept head, the regular press briefings will be ceasing.
Your tax dollars at work.
Note: in case you're curious for more context on the image at the top of this post, I put a link to a Wikipedia page about Charles Babbage below.
https://www.cpr.org/2024/03/28/colorado-faulty-job-data-u-s-bureau-of-labor-statistics-notes-erratic-numbers/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage
We move from innocent bungling by a state agency to cynical, intentional lying by another state agency.
Anyone else get the sense that the folks running our state are doing a bang up job?
Complete Colorado has been fighting the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF) for some time now over access to a series of communiques between the office, some legislators, and advocacy groups. The Complete article linked first below has a topline in it that let's you trace back through the whole drama.
They got access recently after taking the state all the way to the mat and the results are pretty striking.
I've used the adjective swampy in the past to describe the workings of the Democrat political machine running this state, but I don't think swampy quite gets to the nub of the matter here. That is, it doesn't go far enough.
This situation, in contrast to the previous post, is not bungling. It's lying. And it's sharing those lies with the public KNOWING THEY ARE LIES.
Now wonder the HCPF fought so hard.
Let's go back a couple years. Take a look at the second link below. It details some salty language during Polis' 2023 State of the State address.
Quoting that article,
"During his State of the State address on Tuesday, Gov. Jared Polis took aim squarely at the state's largest hospitals, stating it's time to hold them accountable for record profits, paying zero taxes and 'sitting on enormous reserves while overcharging customers.' Polis stated: 'Coloradans still pay some of the highest costs for healthcare, particularly hospital care. Sadly, we are among the top 10 states for hospital cost, price and profit. Let’s change that.' On Wednesday, the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing added fuel to that fire, releasing reports covering the fiscal years 2014-2021 that it claimed showed those record profits."
Later in the article you read the hospital association's response calling foul on this contention.
Were this it, we'd have a typical he said/she said. It would be another article where the administration laid out its rationale for future regulation and the potentially-regulated offer their answer.
But, we now know that this isn't just that. Return to the Complete article.
It's too long to quote here (or screenshot) without taking the whole article, so I will summarize and leave it to you to get all the detail you want. The emails Complete managed to finally pry out of the hands of the HCPF show that the staff there knew that hospitals weren't making record profits. They show the great lengths that HCPF went to in order to get creative on how to spin things to show they were raking in money hand over fist.
While Polis echoes these claims in his speeches and lawmakers (including Republican Matt Soper) start coming up with policy to stop these "greedy" hospitals from making their (imaginary) profits off consumers.
As I say, we're beyond swampy here. Swampy connotes a tackiness, a semi-expected amount of backroom dealings that leave you wanting to wash your hands.
This situation is cynical manipulation done by state officials, the governor, and lawmakers.
https://pagetwo.completecolorado.com/2024/03/24/emails-state-health-agency-rationalize-regulations-colorado-hospitals/
https://www.coloradopolitics.com/governor/polis-state-health-care-financing-agency-trade-barbs-with-hospitals-over-profits/article_15decca6-9780-11ed-a2eb-8376084964a7.html
Related:
I've mentioned this in the past, but it bears repeating. DO NOT assume that because your lawmaker is a Republican that they are always acting according to principles you agree with.
You should be watching your reps and senators REGARDLESS of party.
To wit, the following quote from the Complete article above about lies over hospitals to try and drive poicy:
"They [the exchanges uncovered by Complete's Pief] also showed that at least one Republican lawmaker, Rep. Matt Soper from Mesa County, was among the legislators included on the emails HCPF initially refused to release as part of a March 2023 Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) request by Complete Colorado."