The Roaring Fork Valley is an incredible place to live for many reasons – natural beauty, outdoor recreation, and a strong sense of community, to name just a few – but for years, we have struggled with a cost of living and compensation imbalance that has made health care coverage tenuous at best for many of our neighbors. Because of this, Medicaid is essential to the health of our community. Emerging from the COVID-19 crisis, our local health system is facing new challenges that have reached a crisis point.

We need the state’s leadership and support to protect our patients and sustain our safety net. Specifically, we’re calling on the state’s Medicaid agency to address the Medicaid disenrollment crisis that has cost hundreds of thousands of Coloradans their health coverage even though they are eligible for the program. In addition, we need them to invest in the safety net health providers – clinics, mental health centers, and hospitals – that serve our communities. 

A little background: In 2020, the federal government passed legislation to ensure that anyone enrolled in Medicaid could keep their coverage during the COVID-19 response. When the worst of the pandemic passed, Congress ended that policy, and everyone enrolled in Medicaid had to have their eligibility checked and then re-enroll in the program.

Like the rest of the country, Colorado had seen Medicaid enrollment grow during the pandemic. And, like other states, we anticipated that people would lose coverage. In fact, Colorado’s Medicaid agency published estimates that 325,000 Coloradans would likely lose coverage – and healthcare providers planned accordingly.

But, in reality, Medicaid enrollment in Colorado has declined by more than 575,000 people – about 33 percent of the total program size. According to an analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation, Colorado has the largest net Medicaid enrollment decline in the country. Many of those people lost coverage for administrative reasons, not eligibility reasons – meaning that they are still entitled to Medicaid benefits but aren’t getting them.

In the Roaring Fork Valley, this means patients we have known and served for years as Medicaid patients are now seeking care without insurance, and that is straining our capacity to serve everyone.

For Mountain Family Health Center, over 2,000 of our patients have lost insurance and become uninsured since this time last year. We calculate that our total lost revenue related to this crisis is $1.5 million on a $25 million budget – a six percent decline in one year. As a result, we’ve had to lay off staff, reduce hours of operation and, at the end of the semester, we’ll be closing two school-based health centers. If we don’t get relief from the state soon, we will be forced to consider even further reductions in service.  We have heard time and time again from 48% of our patients who are uninsured that they are grateful to receive the care they wouldn’t otherwise have access to.

 Mountain Family is not alone with feeling the impact of the Medicaid unwind in our community. Our colleagues at our local hospitals, in private practices, independent clinics, and mental health centers are feeling it, too. In a mountain resort community like ours, where access to care is limited to begin with, the reduction in capacity and service resulting from this crisis will impact all residents, regardless of insurance coverage.

While the crisis here is particularly acute, these challenges are being felt across the state. Last month, about a dozen healthcare leaders across Colorado had a chance to sit down with state policymakers to discuss the need for urgent action. We know the budget is tight, and legislators will be looking at cuts this year, but we urge them to make investing in healthcare a top priority to ensure Coloradans eligible for Medicaid get enrolled, and the healthcare safety net is stabilized.  

Dustin Moyer is CEO of Mountain Family Health Centers and lives in Glenwood Springs, CO with his family.