By Thelma Grimes | Colorado Politics
Editor’s Note: Colorado’s healthcare system is entering a period of accelerating instability — a “tsunami,” as multiple leaders describe it — driven by collapsing hospital finances, shrinking Medicaid reimbursements, disappearing services and a political fight over who is responsible for this unraveling. Healthcare Freefall is a multipart series examining how Colorado arrived at this moment, what H.R. 1 will do next and why communities across the state are bracing for deeper shocks.
Colorado’s rural hospitals are facing severe financial strain — with 75% operating on unsustainable margins and some worrying they may have to close.
Southwest Health CEO John Theine said the situation is especially frustrating, given why these facilities were built in the first place.
In the late 1940s, Congress made rural healthcare a national priority, directing major federal funding to build and support hospitals in remote communities.
Theine said Congress acted because urban hospitals were becoming harder for rural residents to reach, and states — particularly across the South — were seeing rapid population growth in rural areas.
Today’s funding fights feel especially dispiriting, Theine said, because they contrast so sharply with an era when the public pushed for stronger healthcare options and higher-quality care — and trusted the government to close the gaps between rural and urban communities.
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