Leaders in Greeley’s health care industry are concerned reduced Medicaid funding will affect not only the uninsured but everyone across Colorado.
This past Wednesday, health care leaders from Banner Health, UCHealth and Sunrise Community Health gathered at the Monfort Children’s Clinic to discuss the impact of recent federal legislation that aims to reduce funding for Medicaid and the impacts on all Coloradans. Many of them echoed what they had spoken about earlier, before the One Big Beautiful Bill Act went into effect in July.
“For many folks in Greeley, Medicaid is the lifeline that means they don’t need to choose between paying rent, putting food on the table and going to the doctor,” City Councilman Tommy Butler said. “That’s the day-to-day reality for some Weld County residents. They just want to have some relief from rising costs.”
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act was a budget reconciliation bill that addressed numerous other aspects of the federal budget. But what took center stage at the time were new requirements for Medicaid coverage. These changes expanded the work requirement to a minimum of 80 hours per month. It also limited state funding, which could result in Colorado losing between $900 million and $2.5 billion in annual funding by 2032, threatening coverage for hundreds of thousands of people, according to the Colorado Department of Health Care and Financing.
These issues have been pushed to the forefront once again, as a failure to decide on the extension of Affordable Care Act Tax Credits led to the shutdown of the federal government that began last Wednesday. The tax credits are set to expire by the end of the year unless renewed. If the credits expire, patients could face increased health insurance premiums and rural hospitals that are already being stretched thin could be further strained.
“Ten rural hospitals in Colorado are at risk of closure today, and three are facing immediate danger. Seventy percent of hospitals in Colorado have unsustainable margins,” UCHealth Greeley Hospital President Marilyn Schock said.
The subsequent rise in health care costs would have long-term effects when combined with their obligations to provide medical care, health care leaders said at the roundtable.
To treat more uninsured patients that are expected due to Medicaid restrictions, Sunrise Chief Clinical Officer Dr. Mark Wallace said the health care system would have to absorb costs or redistribute them elsewhere. This would result in higher health care costs and subsequently higher insurance premiums, he continued.
Additionally, with higher insurance costs, Wallace warns that more money would need to be deducted from patients’ paychecks for insurance provided by their employer, resulting in a lower income for other living expenses, such as food and rent.
Mitzi Moran, the CEO of Sunrise Community Health, said people will also begin to put off health care until the issue becomes debilitating. Consequently, health issues will become more expensive and more complicated to deal with.
“When I’m uninsured, I often say, ‘I feel better. I feel all right. I’m not going to buy my diabetic medication. I’m going to shift those resources somewhere else,’ ” Moran said. “Then what happens to my diabetes? It gets worse, and I end up in the hospital with extended stays. Now I can’t work.
“It is just so short-sighted not to help people get access to affordable care, because if I am the healthiest I can be, I can work, I can take care of my family, I can contribute differently than if I am very highly ill,” Moran said.
Rep. Gabe Evans, who voted in favor of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, remains an adamant supporter of the bill, insisting that it won’t affect Medicaid and only prevents undocumented immigrants from utilizing it. However, undocumented immigrants cannot participate in federal programs like Medicaid, according to Moran, except in the case of pregnant women in Colorado due to legislation passed by state lawmakers in 2022.
Additionally, Evans championed this bill under the belief that it would cut down on waste, fraud and abuse. According to the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services, $31 billion in Medicaid was lost due to fraud, accounting for 3% of Medicaid payments nationwide.
Everyone present at the roundtable agreed fraud and waste were bad, but, according to Moran, everything else seemed like a large band-aid for a very small problem.
Moran said 11,000 patients who receive health care at Sunrise are on Medicaid and are now at risk of becoming uninsured and losing access to affordable health care as a consequence of these recent decisions. Although Sunrise does offer a sliding pay scale to help patients afford health care, Moran said there is only so much weight that can be borne before it becomes untenable.
“There are probably about 11,000 patients that are currently at Sunrise who will no longer have health insurance,” Moran said. “So if we suddenly have a fourth of our patients that are now on the sliding pay scale, we won’t have enough resources to support that. We will not have enough resources to provide that amount of uninsured care.”
About 36% of Banner Health’s patients are also on Medicaid, with an additional 34% on Medicare, according to CEO Alan Qualls. UCHealth Vice President Dan Weaver said after the roundtable that UCHealth is the largest provider of Medicaid care in Colorado, with almost 30% of all of Colorado’s Medicaid hospital care provided by UCHealth
“Last year, UCHealth hospitals and clinics provided about 1.1 million inpatient and outpatient visits for patients covered by Medicaid,” Weaver said in an email. “In the Greeley area, almost 74% of the inpatient and outpatient care we provide is for patients who are either uninsured or covered by a governmental payer, including Medicaid.”
At the end of the discussion, all the health care leaders present offered reassurance that they will continue to serve and provide health care to any who needs it and work together to do that. They also encouraged residents to speak with their representatives and voice their concerns about rising health care costs.
“If we don’t invest through taxation in health care, then we are not going to be the kind of communities that we otherwise could be,” Qualls said. “Without health, you have nothing.”
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