Save Our Safety Net
Protect Infrastructure and Access to Health Care
2025 Legislation:
In 2025, the Colorado General Assembly passed Senate Bill 25-290 that:
- Preserves access to essential safety net health care for Coloradans with immediate support for a broad cross-section of safety net health care providers
- Creates short-term mitigation for infrastructure losses while long-term solutions can be developed
- Establishes a new Provider Stabilization Fund to provide payments to providers based on the volume of care provided to low-income uninsured Coloradans
What You Need to Know:
In 2023 and 2024, nearly 575,000 Coloradans lost access to health care through Medicaid, following the unwind of the COVID public health emergency. This has a significant impact on hospitals and other health care providers, as more patients are uninsured and unable to pay for care that is provided.
Key Points/Hospital Perspective:
- Hospitals have seen a 140% increase in charity care since pre-pandemic 2019.
- Hospital emergency departments (EDs) are seeing 50 percent more uninsured patients than before or during the pandemic; over 18,000 more uninsured patients are visiting the ED every quarter.
- 70% of Colorado hospitals are operating on thin or negative margins.
