By Kasey Richardson | CBS Colorado
The state Department of Health Care Policy and Financing underestimated how sick its members would be. Medicaid covers about 1.26 million people in Colorado.
The department that runs Colorado’s Medicaid program overshot its budget for the most recent fiscal year by more than $120 million after underestimating how sick its members would be.
Medicaid rolls were in flux over the last year as states started removing people for the first time since early 2020. During the COVID-19 public health emergency, states couldn’t kick people off Medicaid, meaning they spent much of the last year determining who still qualifies.
For the fiscal year that ended in June, the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing had to attempt to project not only how many people would lose Medicaid coverage, either because they weren’t eligible or didn’t return the paperwork, but also how much the remaining members’ medical care would cost.