Bill search reveals how Polis grew Medicaid—yet he blames rising costs

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project

Colorado bill search: a new tool for the toolbox

The post that follows this one will lean on a search of Colorado legislation, so before we get to that, I wanted to show you how to search for bills. This is a great way to do some investigating on your own if you have a mind to.

The first link below is to the Colorado legislature’s bill search page. It lets you search bills back to the 2016 legislative session with a variety of filters.

Screenshot 1 shows the search bar.

Going left to right ….

Field A is for a keyword. In the post that follows this one, I looked at Medicaid-related bills, so I typed “Medicaid” there.

Field B lets you search by chamber (House or Senate). My search was more general, I left it on the default “Any”.

Field C is bill type. I wanted legislation, so I left it on “Bill”, but you could search for, as an example, a resolution by changing this setting.

Field D is the session. Both regular and extraordinary (”special”) sessions are possibilities, going back to 2016.

Field E is the subject. You can leave it as a default with “Any” if you’d like, but you can also choose the subject that fits best. In my case, I wanted Medicaid bills, so I searched for “Health Care & Health Insurance” as my subject. Medicaid is specific enough I could have left it on “All” and done fine, but your topic might be a bit more general and so you might consider making your search easier here by trying a couple likely categories.

Lastly, and I put this because I sometimes forget, remember to hit “Apply”. It will not search until you do.

Screenshots 2a and 2b show an example search setting and some of the results, respectively.

There’s one last thing to highlight and that’s circled in 2b: this search tool brings you all bills, not only the ones that became law. If you are (as I am in the next post today) looking for only the things the governor signed, take note of that little bit of text below each bill. It will tell you which ones were signed and which were, say, killed (”postponed indefinitely”).

Happy searching and if you find something of note or something you’re curious about, give me a heads up.

https://leg.colorado.gov/bill-search?field_sessions=104236&sort_bef_combine=field_bill_number%20ASC

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Polis helps expand Medicaid, then decries the expansion.

I recently saw a couple articles covering Gov Polis’ budget recommendations to help cut costs in this state and get our budget to (at least temporarily) balance.

You’ll see lots of his ideas in the Sun and CBS articles linked first and second below, big among them Polis’ brave words about Medicaid funding in this state being one of our biggest costs, and how continuing to expand it is unsustainable.

Quoting the CBS article:

”Polis says, if the state doesn’t slow the rate of growth [of Medicaid], the program will crowd out everything but funding for schools in the next few years. In the state, 1.2 million Coloradans rely on Medicaid. The governor says none of them will lose coverage, but what that coverage looks like will change. ‘There’s two levers on Medicaid,’ Polis said during a press conference. ‘One is how many people you cover, and two is what you cover.’ Polis’ budget request hones in on what services Medicaid covers. ‘There have been a number of benefits that have been added in recent years,’ Polis continued. ‘Some of those are not sustainable over time.’”

The governor is right, of course, but what neither CBS nor the Sun seemed interested in following up on was that last bit. I’ll highlight Polis words from the quote above: “There have been a number of benefits that have been added in recent years.”

Yes indeedy there have!

Guess who signed a lot of them? Why good old Jared Polis himself.

Using the bill search tool I mentioned in the previous post I went to look for bills from Polis’ first legislative session (2019) forward. Screenshot 1 attached shows my search settings for the 2019 session so you could replicate what I did if you have a mind to.*

I picked up several bills. Some of which really didn’t do much other than ask for a study. If memory serves one bill SLIGHTLY decreased state expenditures by consolidating some government work.

The list of bills that follow the CBS story and the Sun story below go chronologically from 2020 to 2024 and represent a good cross section of bills that directly expand Medicaid in this state under Polis’ tenure.** These may not be all but they’re ones that stuck out.

In 2020, Polis signed bills that let people who have too many resources to qualify for Medicaid but who are above 65 and disabled to buy-in to Medicaid in Colorado. He also signed a bill that (and you see this multiple times) that played games with the COVID money the Feds firehosed into Colorado to help shuffle dollars around to help us “launder” more Federal Medicaid dollars.

In 2021, Polis signed a bill to let more pharmacists get Medicaid dollars and then another bill about shuffling around Federal COVID dollars.

In 2022, Polis signed bills to drop the requirement that Medicaid patients needing repairs on complex rehabilitative technology get prior authorization before paying. This didn’t give Medicaid to new groups, but it greased the skids for Medicaid outlays. Oh, and he also signed a bill that would allow Medicaid to pay for therapy with horseys if you wanted it.

In 2023, Polis was back at it, removing another check by eliminating prior authorization for certain advanced medicines (as above with the rehab), and then there were significant expansions of what Medicaid would pay for.

Screenshot 2 is a great example coming from the fiscal note for SB23-289. The language makes it pretty clear: Medicaid, with a bigger Federal match can now be used to fund things like homemaker services and training on how to select/manage/fire an attendant.

And lastly (for this post at least–I stopped here for space reasons), Polis signed a bill in 2024 to study whether or not we could convince the Feds to allow us to use Medicaid to cover health-related social needs. Think things like housing, nutrition, and utility bills.

Put aside whether or not you think any of these things are worthy uses of taxpayer money.

Polis has signed into law numerous measures that increase our state’s spending, move money around so we can wring more out of the Feds to pay for increased Medicaid spending, grease the skids for Medicaid spending, and make more services and people eligible.

Increased medical costs are undoubtedly part of the problem with Medicaid, but don’t be fooled by Polis’ use of the passive voice in his press conference.

It wasn’t benefits that have been added to, it was benefits HE added to along with his merry band of government-spending enthusiasts in the legislature.

We have this problem in part due to Polis’ signing these bills.

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT THE COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.