Rocky Mountain Voice

Menu

Tag: Medicaid

Senate Bill 135 Raises New Questions About TABOR Limits And Taxpayer Protections
No Comments
Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Senate Bill 135 Raises New Questions About TABOR Limits And Taxpayer Protections

By Nash Herman | Commentary, Complete Colorado Claims that Senate Bill 26-135 could permanently eliminate the refund of overcollected revenue under Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) amendment may at first blush sound hyperbolic, but they are not. Let me explain.  Beyond handing progressive legislators a blank check to cover up their own overspending, the new TABOR revenue limit creates a perverse incentive to limit both fiscal transparency and voter consent.  TABOR working just fine  TABOR’s existing formula limits annual growth of a portion of the state budget to a combination of population growth plus inflation.  This formula allows government to reasonably grow and accounts for factors not directly wit...
Read More
Colorado Lawmakers Weigh $500 Million In Cuts As $1.5 Billion Deficit Looms
No Comments
Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Colorado Lawmakers Weigh $500 Million In Cuts As $1.5 Billion Deficit Looms

By: Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics The legislature’s Joint Budget Committee is working through a list Wednesday of about 150 suggestions to cut as much as $1.5 billion in general fund dollars out of next year’s budget. The largest on the list prepared by JBC staff is $198 million in cuts to the funding for the annual senior and disabled veterans homestead exemption. Funding for the homestead exemption has to come out of general fund dollars in the 2026-27 budget because the state does not have a Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights surplus that would normally cover that cost. The other side of the issue is Gov. Jared Polis’ support for a proposal to allow Pinnacol Assurance to privatize, with the hopes that half of the funds Pinnacol would pay the state as a result ...
Read More
Colorado Health Initiative For Immigrants Exceeds Fiscal Projections By Over 600%
No Comments
The Daily Caller, Approved, State

Colorado Health Initiative For Immigrants Exceeds Fiscal Projections By Over 600%

By Harold Hutchison | The Daily Caller A program to provide health care for pregnant illegal immigrants in Colorado is costing the state over seven times its budget projections since it was enacted, the Colorado Sun reported. The Covering All Coloradans program, which was enacted in 2022, gave health care benefits to illegal immigrants who would otherwise have qualified for Medicaid, according to the Sun. The program was expected to cost the state $14.7 million dollars but its cost has instead ballooned to over $104 million. The program’s launch was secured in 2025 when money was appropriated by the state legislature. The state is now facing a $1 billion budget shortfall, primarily due to programs like Covering All Coloradans, the Sun...
Read More
Colorado Budget Gap Nears $1.5B As Revenue Forecast Slides
No Comments
The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

Colorado Budget Gap Nears $1.5B As Revenue Forecast Slides

By: Marianne Goodland | The Denver Gazette The latest revenue forecasts from economists in both the governor’s office and the Colorado legislature show that the state’s budget predicament has worsened — by hundreds of millions of dollars more. That, in turn, means cuts programs and services in next year’s fiscal budget will go much deeper. The state’s fiscal predicament also means no refunds for Colorado residents. Economists with the Legislative Council downgraded the forecast for the 2026-27 fiscal year by another $643 million, bringing the total shortfall to nearly $1.5 billion. What’s driving the downgrade? General fund revenues — dollars that come from tax collections for individual and corporate income tax, and sales and use taxes — came in lower for fi...
Read More
Colorado Program For Immigrant Children And Pregnant Women Blows Past Cost Estimates By 611%
No Comments
The Colorado Sun, Approved, State

Colorado Program For Immigrant Children And Pregnant Women Blows Past Cost Estimates By 611%

By Jesse Paul and John Ingold | The Colorado Sun The state predicts that the Covering All Coloradans program will cost Colorado $104.5 million in the fiscal year that began July 1. Nonpartisan fiscal analysts estimated the cost would be $14.7 million. roviding health care to children and pregnant people who would qualify for Medicaid if not for their immigration status will cost Colorado more than six times what was projected this year.  Because of higher-than-forecast enrollment, the state is expecting that the Cover All Coloradans program will cost the state $104.5 million in the fiscal year that began July 1. When Democratic state lawmakers passed a bill in 2022 launching the health insurance safety net initiative, nonpartisan fiscal analysts estima...
Read More
Congress Investigates Colorado Medicaid After Reports Of Fraud And Improper Payments
No Comments
The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

Congress Investigates Colorado Medicaid After Reports Of Fraud And Improper Payments

By Marianne Goodland | The Denver Gazette A congressional committee is probing reports of waste, fraud and abuse in Colorado’s Medicaid program, citing recent stories outlining over-billing in transportation spending and alleged improper payments in autism services. The U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce has sent a letter to Gov. Jared Polis and the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Finance, seeking, among other things, audits and processes in place to comply with federal laws The March 3 letter, signed by committee Chair Rep. Brett Guthrie, a Republican from Kentucky, and two subcommittee chairs, pointed to problems that they said surfaced in Minnesota, such as over-billing, falsified records, identity theft and phantom claims in Medicaid social s...
Read More
Federal Audit Finds Colorado Misspent $78 Million On Autism Therapy
No Comments
The Colorado Sun, Approved, State

Federal Audit Finds Colorado Misspent $78 Million On Autism Therapy

By Jennifer Brown | The Colorado Sun The state must repay the federal government $42.6 million after “questionable billing patterns.” Colorado made at least $77.8 million in improper payments for Medicaid services for children with autism and must refund the federal government $42.6 million, federal officials said Monday.  Auditors at the federal Office of the Inspector General found the state Medicaid program has been improperly covering care by uncredentialed behavioral technicians for children with autism, among other billing discrepancies.  The audit released Monday comes as the state is already dealing with a $1 billion budget shortfall and cuts to Medicaid benefits that have affected multiple programs for people with low incomes and disabi...
Read More
Audits Across 28 States Halt $5.7 Billion in Improper Spending
No Comments
Red State, Approved, National

Audits Across 28 States Halt $5.7 Billion in Improper Spending

By Ben Smith | RedState.com For years, fraud has been dismissed as a right-wing talking point from the Trump administration. A new report from state financial officers makes that claim harder to ignore. Across 28 states, auditors say they identified and stopped $5.7 billion in waste, fraud, and abuse in a single year. Those findings span Medicaid eligibility systems, local government budgets, payroll controls, and nonprofit oversight. The money did not disappear into thin air. It was tracked, documented, and stopped once someone chose to look. The State Financial Officers Foundation’s 2025 Oversight Report lays out what 40 state treasurers, auditors, and comptrollers say they uncovered after digging into eligibility systems, payment flows, an...
Read More
Federal Reimbursement Model of ‘Perverse Incentives’ Fuels Colorado Medicaid Expansion
No Comments
Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Federal Reimbursement Model of ‘Perverse Incentives’ Fuels Colorado Medicaid Expansion

By Nash Herman | Commentary, Complete Colorado Colorado’s ongoing budget-gap struggles are the predictable result of structural problems with Medicaid.  Paragon Health Institute, a non-partisan research institute, recently published a new report, Preserve and Improve Medicaid, which explains the program’s inherent challenges and how states such as Colorado can take advantage of One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) reforms to improve outcomes.  However, it remains ultimately up to Colorado legislators to address the program’s systemic issues.  Medicaid’s ‘perverse incentives’ As economist Linda Gorman recently explained, the rapid 2010 expansion of Medicaid did not produce large gains in physical health, suggesting that the new expansion ...
Read More
Colorado Launches New Study On Single Payer Health Care A Decade After Being Rejected By Voters
No Comments
The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

Colorado Launches New Study On Single Payer Health Care A Decade After Being Rejected By Voters

By Mary Shinn | The Denver Gazette Colorado residents owe about $1 billion in medical debt.  The sky-high number is a small portion of the nation’s medical debt estimated around $220 billion, according to a 2024 analysis by Peterson Center on Healthcare and KFF, formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation.  As more people nationally are expected to lose their health insurance following planned cuts and changes to Medicaid in January 2027, the Colorado School of Public Health is starting work on a study to analyze how the state could set up a single-payer health insurance program that would be run at the state level. Such a system could simplify the complicated private insurance system and ensure all state residents have coverage.  “It would be simple. I...
Read More

FD863768-0ACF-495E-9D21-2EF784DFFA6B[1]

Join us at RMV's Freedom Festival

Click Here for Tickets!

This will close in 0 seconds