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Midwives Sue State Alleging Bias Is Hurting Maternity Care Access in Colorado
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The Colorado Sun, Approved, State

Midwives Sue State Alleging Bias Is Hurting Maternity Care Access in Colorado

By: Daliah Singer | The Colorado Sun The reproductive health practitioners allege bias and sex-based discrimination by Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies division. Kalie Caler was 8 years old when she decided that she wanted to deliver babies for a living. Born and raised in Pagosa Springs, she completed midwifery school in Florida before moving home to start Mountain Roots Midwifery in 2019.  As the only midwife in town, she delivered more than a dozen babies during her first year, traveling an hour or more to support clients as far away as Mancos, Durango and Crestone. She also birthed all three of her own children at home.  Then, in February 2022, one of her clients went into labor and the birth didn’t go as expected. The baby boy wasn’t breath...
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State Budget Passes With Medicaid Reductions And Broad Spending Cuts
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CBS Colorado, Approved, State

State Budget Passes With Medicaid Reductions And Broad Spending Cuts

By Shaun Boyd | CBS Colorado The state Senate gave final approval Thursday to a new state budget. It came in at just under $47 billion, an increase of about $3 billion over last year. The discretionary portion of the budget -- the general fund -- is $17.4 billion. While lawmakers avoided cuts to K-12 education and higher ed, most state departments saw reductions, with the agency in charge of Medicaid taking the biggest hit. Medicaid spending makes up about 40% of this year's budget. It has been increasing dramatically over the last few years, in part because the legislature has expanded the services it covers. READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT CBS COLORADO
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President Trump’s Historic Year of Achievements for Colorado
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

President Trump’s Historic Year of Achievements for Colorado

By Christy Fidura | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice When Joe Biden left office, he left a legacy of weakness, wokeness, and worry among the American people about our nation's future. In just over one year, President Trump has turned America around to ensure that the state of our Union is strong, and the future is bright. Despite inheriting an economy on the verge of collapse, President Trump stopped the bleeding and is getting America, and Colorado, back on the right path. True wages for workers increased more than $1,100 last year and Americans are reaping the rewards of tax refunds up 15% this year thanks to President Trump and Republicans passing the largest tax cut in history. The Working Class Families Tax Cut fulfilled several of President Trump's c...
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Polis Budget Plan Sparks Bipartisan Pushback Over Medicaid Costs and Pinnacol Gamble
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Polis Budget Plan Sparks Bipartisan Pushback Over Medicaid Costs and Pinnacol Gamble

By Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics Gov. Jared Polis’ proposed state budget for 2026-27 drew sharp criticism Wednesday from the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee, as lawmakers from both parties criticized plans to slow Medicaid spending growth and to rely on a deal to privatize Pinnacol Assurance. This quasi-state agency is the state’s largest provider of workers’ compensation insurance. Polis has already cut $79 million in the 2025-26 budget, primarily for rates paid to Medicaid providers in dental, behavioral health and services to children with disabilities. The governor’s 2026-27 budget proposes an additional $197.7 million in general fund dollars, or about 5.6%, in the Medicaid program. But the projected growth is at 11.9%, or $631.4 million. He has also brought in...
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Colorado’s rural-urban divide revealed: 10 takeaways from the Rural Reckoning series
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The Gazette, Approved, State

Colorado’s rural-urban divide revealed: 10 takeaways from the Rural Reckoning series

By Vince Bzdek | The Gazette How bad is the rural/urban divide in Colorado? That’s what a team of reporters at Colorado Politics and The Colorado Network, our statewide collective of freelancers, set out to measure and understand. Through extensive interviews, data analysis and community voices, our journalists have documented the yawning gap between what rural areas contribute to the state through agriculture, energy production, tourism and outdoor recreation, and the attention, money and support they receive in the halls of the Capitol and the governor’s mansion. That gap has resulted in a host of unaddressed problems unique to rural Colorado. Our reporters also have found that culturally, the polarization between rural and urban has deepened so much that when it comes to pol...
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Colorado braces for $858M healthcare shift as feds pull back Medicaid, SNAP funding, prompting special session
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Colorado braces for $858M healthcare shift as feds pull back Medicaid, SNAP funding, prompting special session

By Marissa Ventrelli | Colorado Politics Colorado legislators met at the state Capitol on Friday morning to review how the recently-adopted federal budget will affect health issues in the state. The review is among the steps lawmakers are taking in preparation for an expected special session. Multiple sources have told Colorado Politics that the special session will take place during the week of Aug. 18. Friday's meeting wasn't publicly announced on the legislature's website; the General Assembly had earlier cut funding for many interim committees due to budget constraints.  Senate Democrats announced on their website an "informal meeting" of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, which drew a dozen lawmakers and dozens of lobbyists, journalists and others to the ...
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Colorado braces for special session over bloated Medicaid spending amid federal pressure
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Approved, National, State, The Colorado Sun

Colorado braces for special session over bloated Medicaid spending amid federal pressure

By John Ingold | Colorado Sun There are now only seven days left in Colorado’s legislative session. But lawmakers and other state officials have for weeks been bracing for the possibility of coming back to the Capitol later this year to deal with potential federal cuts to Medicaid likely to be included in Congressional Republicans’ still-being-written budget proposal. “There certainly are a lot of indicators that would suggest that we might end up having to come back in the event that there’s a dramatic cut to Medicaid,” state Sen. Judy Amabile, a Boulder Democrat and member of the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee, said last month, as first reported in The Colorado Sun’s politics newsletter, The Unaffiliated. Speaking to a group of health care leaders earlier this mo...
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