Colorado may cap enrollment in Cover All Coloradans at 25,000 people under HB26-1411, which passed House second reading April 9 and heads toward a final floor vote. The program provides Medicaid-equivalent health coverage to residents who do not qualify for federal Medicaid due to immigration status. Current enrollment stands around 21,000.
The bill grandfathers everyone currently enrolled. New applicants may join only when enrollment falls below 25,000. The cap does not trigger automatic removals.
The bill also reduces dental benefits from $1,000 to $750 per year per person and eliminates long-term care services under the program. Those changes, combined with the enrollment cap, save $16.3 million in 2026-27. Savings nearly double the following fiscal year.
Prime sponsors are Representatives Kyle Brown, Emily Sirota, and Rick Taggart — all three members of the Joint Budget Committee. Taggart, a Grand Junction Republican, told his caucus the bill was the most difficult he has ever sponsored. Senate sponsors are Amabile, Bridges, and Kirkmeyer.
The state faces a $1.2 billion general fund shortfall for 2026-27. Cover All Coloradans cost more than $100 million in 2025-26. The 2026-27 estimate is $130 million — five times the $26 million projected when the legislature created the program in 2022.
The enrollment cap saves $16.3 million. That figure represents the legislature’s answer to a cost that grew by $104 million over four years without actuarial modeling to support the original projection.
Colorado’s Medicaid waiver waitlist for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities runs 14 years. The Joint Budget Committee cut provider reimbursement rates for disability services by 21 percent this year. The $16.3 million saved by capping Cover All Coloradans is 8 percent of what the legislature cut from services for those citizens in the same budget cycle.
What the bill does not address is the structural problem. Colorado spent $16 billion on Medicaid in 2025. That figure has doubled in a decade. The shortfall predates Cover All Coloradans and will outlast this cap.
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