By Ross Brooks and Beverly Razon

Last December, a broad coalition of consumer advocates, safety net providers, hospitals, health plans and physicians statewide published a warning: our state was facing a health care crisis, and fragmented policymaking would make it harder to solve. These members of the Colorado Health Policy Forum called on Gov. Jared Polis, the legislature and stakeholders to work together to build something better.

This session, lawmakers faced one of the most difficult budget environments ever and was forced to make painful choices. To close a roughly $1.5 billion shortfall, the legislature cut Medicaid provider rates by 2%, placed new limits on Medicaid coverage and eliminated funding for programs across departments. Among the cuts was a cap on paid hours for family caregivers of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and reductions to services for some of Colorado’s most vulnerable residents. Cover All Coloradans, the program providing medical and behavioral health coverage for children and pregnant women, was capped and restructured, despite enrolling some 21,000 children.

As hard as those decisions were, the 2027 legislative session could make them seem easy by comparison. The legislature has already been warned Colorado faces a third consecutive billion-dollar shortfall in 2027 if nothing changes, and that is before the full force of federal cuts arrive.

H.R. 1, signed into federal law last July, represents the largest cuts to Medicaid since the program began in the 1960s. Federal spending on Medicaid in Colorado is projected to be cut by about 16%, roughly $14 billion, during the next decade. Beginning in 2027, most adult Medicaid members will have to prove they are working, volunteering or in school for at least 80 hours a month, and eligibility will be verified twice a year instead of once.

The Urban Institute estimates these requirements alone could cause approximately 100,000 Coloradans to lose Medicaid coverage, not because they technically lost eligibility, but because of more complex paperwork requirements. For Colorado’s Community Health Centers and behavioral health providers serving patients on thin margins, enrollment losses will mean more uncompensated care, reduced hours and longer waits. From 2021 to 2024, the number of uninsured patients at Colorado’s Community Health Centers rose by 29%, and more cuts will push their numbers higher.

We applaud a meaningful step taken at the close of this session. Sen. Judy Amabile, with the support of her Joint Budget Committee colleagues, secured funding for a working group that will do a deep dive into Colorado’s Medicaid program over the summer, examining how to put the program on a more sustainable footing. This is the kind of grounded, evidence-based examination our coalition called for in December, and we are committed to being full partners in that effort.

But the work cannot stop there. Former Republican U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, now facing a terminal cancer diagnosis, recently reflected “politics barely matters for what we’re going through right now.” That clarity carries a lesson for our state. Colorado will have a new governor and many new lawmakers in 2027 who will face a health care and budget landscape more daunting than anything their predecessors navigated. They will need well-vetted, practical ideas from a diverse coalition of thinkers to cut through the political noise and do right by patients.

That work is a responsibility our Colorado Health Policy Forum takes seriously. We call for genuine partnership with Colorado’s incoming leadership and the full breadth of the health care community, grounded in shared data, accountable for outcomes and committed to structural solutions.

Colorado’s health care is not a political talking point — it is about people. It is a patient at a Community Health Center receiving affordable care from a team who knows their history. It is a family that can afford to take a sick child to the doctor rather than wait and hope.

The time is now. We stand ready to do that work alongside Colorado’s incoming governor and legislative leaders.

Ross Brooks is president and chief executive of the Colorado Community Health Network, the unified voice for Colorado’s 21 Community Health Centers serving more than 850,000 Coloradans. Beverly Razon is senior vice president of Copic, a mission-driven medical professional liability insurance carrier that was started by the physicians of Colorado. Both are members of the Colorado Health Policy Forum.