The state agency that regulates health insurance announced Tuesday that it estimates more than a third of people who buy insurance on their own in Colorado could drop coverage due to rising prices if certain subsidies are not extended and the federal reconciliation bill passes as-is.
That number — 110,000 people choosing to go without insurance due to affordability — would be an astonishing rollback of health coverage gains made since the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. And, coupled with coverage losses due to Medicaid provisions in the bill, it could lead to a spiking uninsured rate with serious implications for the health of Coloradans, the financial well-being of health care providers and the operations of employers.
“The ripple effects of this are going to be massive,” Colorado Insurance Commissioner Michael Conway said. “There won’t be any corner of our health care system that won’t be touched by what’s about to come down.”
The precise mechanisms of the potential price spike are complex and get to the inner workings of how insurers set premiums and how the state has tried to keep those prices down. They combine the expiration of subsidies that help people buy insurance, the resulting decline in federal funding for a state program that helps hold insurance prices in check, and the effective end of a deft policy maneuver that Colorado and other states had used to boost subsidy amounts.
Gov. Jared Polis sent a letter to Colorado’s Congressional delegation Tuesday warning them of the consequences of passing the reconciliation bill — the giant spending measure that has already cleared the U.S. House and is named by supporters as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
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