If you're not someone who gets health benefits from your employer, now's the time to make sure your insurance is in order for next year. That's because it's currently the open enrollment period to sign up for a health plan. In Colorado, the deadline is December 15 to get coverage that starts on the first of the year. On this week's Health and Prevention Report, Lucas Brady Woods speaks with healthcare provider Axis Health Systems to break down the insurance market and why it's important to be covered.

A task force at the Colorado state Capitol has approved a plan to spend four hundred million dollars of coronavirus relief money on affordable housing projects; The City of Cortez is seeking input from the public on the candidates for Parks and Recreation Director and Public Works Director at two open house events this week.

Governor Jared Polis and the state’s top disease expert aren’t yet to know whether the state has seen the worst of its latest wave of coronavirus infections. And Montezuma-Cortez RE-1 schools are moving to 4 day school weeks next year.

Governor Jared Polis made his first sales pitch to lawmakers Friday for his forty billion dollar budget proposal. And December has arrived, but in much of the West snowfall has not.

In northwest New Mexico, San Juan Regional Medical Center will now be offering monoclonal antibody treatment for COVID-19 patients seven days a week; Mesa Verde National Park is seeking public comment on the restoration of one of the park’s archaeological sites.

The head of Colorado’s department of transportation says the state will not get as much of a boost from the recently passed federal infrastructure package as the White House is advertising; The intensive care unit at Southwest Health System in Cortez remains at capacity, and includes a handful of COVID-19 patients.

A group advising Colorado lawmakers on how to spend four hundred million dollars of federal aid on affordable housing has started voting on WHICH projects should get funding; The Colorado Department of Transportation says the final lane on I-70 through Glenwood Canyon should reopen within the next week.

Colorado needs an above-average snowpack this year to recover from two exceptionally dry summers; Cortez-based backpack manufacturing company Osprey Packs is going to be bought by another company; The city of Cortez has officially sworn in a new municipal Judge.

An important national voting document for US voters will soon be available for the first time in Native American languages; In Southwest Colorado, seasonal trail closures begin on Wednesday.

A new report identifies the areas most valuable for preserving biodiversity and fighting climate change within the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests, which are managed as a unit commonly known as "G-MUG." And The Department of the Interior on Friday released its report on federal oil and gas leasing and permitting practices, following a review of onshore and offshore oil and gas programs.