Marianne Goodland’s piece in The Denver Gazette is the kind of story that ought to make every hard-working Coloradan grind their teeth. Published March 19, it lays out how Colorado’s taxpayer-funded health care program for pregnant women and children living in the country illegally has blown far past its original price tag, right as the state is already staring down a massive budget hole. The program, known as Cover All Coloradans (I know, the name is insulting, isn’t it – the Democrats rubbed our noses in it with this one), launched in 2024 and now enrolls more than 30,000 people, with projected general fund costs for the next budget year topping $112 million.
What makes the story even richer, in the worst possible way, is the timing. This comes as state budget writers are scrambling to plug a nearly $1.5 billion general fund shortfall for 2026-27. Yet here sits a program passed in 2022 on a strict party-line vote, now costing more than six times the original estimate for the 2025-26 budget window. That is not a minor miss. That is government either refusing to do math or refusing to care what the math says.
Goodland also reports that Joint Budget Committee staff have already recommended trimming some benefits in the program to save about $17 million in general fund dollars, while warning that costs could skyrocket further without changes. Meanwhile, Republicans are pointing to the whole mess as a textbook example of Democratic overspending and structural budget failure after years of expanding government commitments faster than taxpayers can possibly keep up.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Cover All Coloradans was originally estimated to cost about $27 million in general funds for 2025-26. Instead, it cost nearly $90 million in 2025-26 and could require more than $112 million in general fund dollars in 2026-27. That is not mission creep. That is a fiscal faceplant.
- Enrollment exploded from 5,283 people in 2024-25 to more than 24,000 in 2025-26, with projections of more than 30,000 next year. Apparently when government offers expensive benefits, more people sign up. Shocking development.
- The program was passed in 2022 on a strict party-line vote in both the House and Senate. So let us please skip the bipartisan shrugging when the bill comes due. This was a ruling-party special from the jump.
- JBC staff recommended eliminating dental, long-term services, and behavioral health benefits for illegal immigrants in the program, which would save about $17 million in general fund dollars. Even then, staff warned costs could still skyrocket. So the fix is basically trimming around the edges while the engine is still on fire.
- Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer said Colorado does not have a revenue problem, it has an overspending problem, and pointed to Cover All Coloradans as one example of the spending decisions that helped create a structural deficit. Hard to argue with that when the state is cutting elsewhere while this program keeps ballooning.
My Bottom Line
It takes a special kind of nerve to run Colorado into a budget hole and then turn around and tell the people footing the bill that this was all just some unfortunate surprise. This story came right alongside news of a giant budget shortfall, and together they tell you everything you need to know about the priorities under one-party Democratic rule in this state. Coloradans struggle to afford their own health care, their own insurance, their own groceries, their own property taxes, and somehow the geniuses under the Gold Dome decided this was the time to wildly underestimate a government benefit for people here illegally. Brilliant work, everyone.
Let us be plain about it. This is the result of choices. Not weather. Not fate. Not some random cosmic accounting error. Choices. Democrats passed this program on a party-line vote. Democrats own the policy. Democrats own the numbers. Democrats own the fact that the estimated cost got absolutely steamrolled by reality. Whether that happened because of woeful ignorance or straight-faced defiance hardly matters at this point. Either they did not understand what they were doing, or they did and did not care.
And while regular Coloradans are told there is never enough money for this or that, the state somehow keeps finding ways to burn through taxpayer dollars on programs designed to signal moral superiority. That is the real animating force here. Virtue-signaling with your money. The folks in charge want to look compassionate, enlightened, and terribly evolved, right up until the cost explodes and somebody has to explain why the cupboard is bare.
The real insult is that ordinary citizens are the ones who get squeezed when this nonsense blows up. We start hearing about cuts to Medicaid, cuts to services, cuts everywhere, while the same political class that created the mess still expects applause for its intentions. Intentions do not balance budgets. Intentions do not make health care more affordable for legal residents. Intentions do not excuse rewarding lawbreaking while the taxpayers who followed the rules get stuck with the invoice.
Colorado has a governor’s race this fall, and voters ought to take this story personally. Because it is personal. It is your money, your state, your future, and your leaders deciding that hard-working Coloradans come second to ideological theater. At some point the Great Suburban Normie has to stop tolerating it. Elect more of the same, and you will get more of the same. Elect the Republican, or prepare for another round of fiscal malpractice dressed up as compassion.
Source: The Denver Gazette
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