Jonathan Harner, a health care reform advocate, died Nov. 7. He was 42 and had suffered from cancer.
Harner “had a passion about improving the lives of others,” said Phyllis Albritton, who met him when they both worked at the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing.
“Jonathan was my boss and probably one of the smartest people I knew,” Albritton said. “He was articulate, wrote well, explained well, could think strategically and could always hold his temper,” said Albritton, who lives in Evergreen.
Harner was chief operating officer of Colorado CHP+, a state-federal program providing health insurance for children whose parents are unable to afford it.
Barbara Ladon, who was his boss at CHP+, said, “Jonathan loved a challenge,” as he worked with health insurers, hospitals, medical societies and advocacy groups to get the program going. “He was goal-directed,” she said, and stuck to a goal until it was reached.
Harner also worked with the state’s Ryan White program, which helps those with HIV/AIDS. The program was named for a young Indiana teenager who was kicked out of school in the 1980s because he was HIV positive. White had contracted the virus through a blood transfusion, and after the nationwide publicity, he was reinstated. He died at 18, just days before his high school graduation.
“Jonathan worked tirelessly on behalf of children,” said Ladon.
“He was an incredible young man,” said his stepmother, state Rep. Judy Solano, D-Brighton.
“He was driven because he wanted to do something good,” she said.
Harner started working in the health care field when he was 25, having left college, saying, “I have too much to do,” said Solano. He started writing health care policy grant requests.
Jonathan Harner was born in Denver on April 24, 1968, and graduated from Cherry Creek High School. He changed his name from Scott A. Solano to Jonathan Harner.
He is survived by his longtime partner, Larry Dodson of Arvada; his daughter, Lauren Dodson; his father, Manuel Solano of Brighton; his mother, Candice Harner-Neff of Arvada; two brothers, Ron Fiske of Thornton and Lucas Solano of Brighton; a sister, Jennifer Solano of San Francisco; and his grandparents, Val and Bessie Solano of Commerce City.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
