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Posted by Jan Wondra | Jun 10, 2025
Image by Karolina Grabowska for Pexels
“Devastatingly Cruel” Bill Could Lead to Tens of Thousands of Coloradans Losing Health Coverage in 2026
This week, the Colorado Division of Insurance (DOI) informed health insurance companies that the agency was revising the expected impact of Colorado’s Reinsurance Pro. Why? Because its data must now reflect the Republican controlled Congress’s failure to extend enhanced tax credits for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) market in the “big, beautiful bill”.
Governor Jared Polis has written to Colorado’s Congressional delegation urging them and Congress to help keep thousands of Coloradans on their health care coverage by extending tax credits for those buying insurance off the health exchange.
Courtesy photo. Washington State Public Health.
“On top of the destructive proposed cuts to Medicaid, which will throw hundreds of thousands of Coloradans off of their health care, the failure of the Republican controlled Congress to extend these ACA tax credits, which have saved Colorado families hundreds of millions in premiums, will throw even more people off of health insurance who rely on reinsurance and marketplace coverage to save money,” said Polis. “While Republicans fight with each other, hardworking Coloradans are focused on keeping health care that is accessible and affordable, and want to see costs go down, not up. The Senate should take action to extend these critical tax credits for hardworking families and start from scratch on the reconciliation bill.”
Since the inception of the bipartisan reinsurance initiative from 2020 through 2025, Coloradans will have saved over $2.1 billion dollars on health care. These enhanced tax credits are scheduled to expire at the end of the year. Failing to extend them, when combined with the harmful provisions of the Reconciliation bill, will increase costs on Colorado families and individuals.
In this state, a disproportionate number of those insured by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are rural, up to 40 percent are children, and most are middle to lower income. Many Coloradans work at jobs where private healthcare insurance isn’t even offered to them.
The Republican controlled House passed Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” by a one-vote margin, 215 – 214. Representatives Pettersen, Neguse, DeGette, and Crow voted no on the bill, while Representatives Hurd, Evans, Crank and Boebert voted yes.
Today the governor wrote to Colorado’s members of Congress declaring: “Amongst its many failures, the Reconciliation bill passed by the House fails to extend the enhanced tax credits that Coloradans rely on to make their health insurance affordable. If the Republican controlled Congress allows those cuts to go into effect, tens of thousands of Coloradans will no longer be able to afford their health care.
Coloradans who receive enhanced tax credits will see their net premiums increase on average by 104 percent, simply due to the expiration of these credits. According to the DOI, the end of enhanced tax credits will effectively be a tax increase for Coloradans and, moreover, will usher in the return of the “subsidy cliff” – where Coloradans making more than 400 percent of the federal poverty level (household income of $84,600 for a family of two) are left paying the full cost of their health insurance premiums without any assistance.
Just as concerning: the combined effect will disproportionately impact households with ACA enrollees who are over age 55. Not only is this an age group often faced with growing health issues and age discrimination in the workplace, but they are still years away from the age when they can qualify for Medicare.
Colorado’s medical reinsurance program has made preventative health care within reach across a broad spectrum of needs, providing insurance to those with chronic health care conditions such as asthma, or life-threatening illnesses such as cancer, that private insurance often refused to cover. The end of the enhanced tax credits would significantly reduce the positive benefits of Colorado’s reinsurance initiative by materially reducing the federal support received to reduce individual market rates.
Since the inception of the bipartisan reinsurance initiative in 2020 through 2025, Coloradans will have saved more than $2.1 billion dollars. The reinsurance initiative operates under an ACA Section 1332 waiver, and is funded by the dollars that would otherwise flow through premium tax credits without increasing costs for the federal government. If the enhanced tax credits are not extended, state reinsurance initiative would have less funding available to lower premiums for all consumers in the market.”
The reconciliation bill would also increase red tape for Coloradans and create new barriers to enrollment.
“Between the cuts to Colorado’s Medicaid coverage and the cuts to Colorado’s ACA market, this bill will dramatically increase the uninsured rate in Colorado, rip away people’s access to health care, and lead to a substantially higher amount of uncompensated care that must be absorbed by Colorado’s hospitals and health care providers. That, in turn, will mean that employers will see their health insurance premiums rise as well. No corner of our health care system will be safe from the damage that this bill will inflict,” the Governor continued.
“I urge you to take action, either through amendments to the reconciliation bill or through standalone legislation, to extend these enhanced premium tax credits and to scrap additional provisions in the reconciliation bill that will further raise health insurance costs and make health care unaffordable for many Coloradans,” he added.
Both Colorado House Speaker Julie McCluskie and Senator Dylan Roberts have also expressed concerns:
“If Congressional Republicans fail to extend the enhanced ACA tax credits, many Coloradans who buy their own health insurance will lose the coverage they rely on, and many more will see their premiums go up, especially in the high country and rural parts of our state,” said Speaker Julie McCluskie (D-Dillon).
“These premium increases and the loss of insurance coverage, on top of the proposed cuts to Medicaid, will be devastating for families and destabilize rural health care systems that cannot absorb the cost of more uninsured patients at their facilities,” she continued. “In Colorado, we’ve worked together to lower costs for families with the successful reinsurance program. Washington Republicans must extend these ACA credits, or Colorado families will be stuck with the bill.”
“It is hard to overstate the negative impact that losing health insurance affordability tax credits would have on Coloradans, especially those in our rural and mountain communities,” said State Senator Dylan Roberts (D-Frisco).
“Colorado’s bipartisan leadership in using savings from the ACA to create the Reinsurance and Colorado Option programs has kept insurance rates from spiking and allowed tens of thousands of more Coloradans to have access to the financial security of health insurance coverage. Slashing these tax credits will undermine all of that, spike health insurance rates, and lead to more Coloradans being uninsured, particularly the rural residents our state’s Republican members of Congress represent. It’s truly baffling they’d harm their constituents like this.”
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Publisher/Managing EditorWith criss-crossing careers in global marketing and advertising, product management, and journalism, Wondra has found leading business entities from Western Union North America Money Transfer to the Arrow Electronics Global Marketing team to be fertile strategic ground before returning to her journalistic roots; first launching theCorridor.biz for the Villager Media Group, before launching Ark Valley Voice. As the winner of several Colorado Press Association Awards and Publisher/Managing Editor, she leads an enthusiastic team of journalists who believe strongly that “Truth should have a voice.”
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