The Sentinel carries a CPR News story by Tom Hesse on Colorado lawmakers launching a serious look at the state’s Medicaid program, known as Health First Colorado. The new Colorado Commission on Medicaid met this week with a mission that sounds simple until you remember government wrote it: find ways to manage rising Medicaid costs, cut red tape, and prepare for major federal policy changes.
The human side is not theoretical. The article centers families like the Limbaughs of Aurora, whose son Andrew has intellectual and developmental disabilities and has relied on Medicaid supports most of his life. His father, Von Limbaugh, told lawmakers he wants a system that is easier to navigate, predictable, protective, and “focused on the members, not the bureaucracy.”
That is the whole problem wearing Sunday shoes at the Capitol. Normal people need care. Providers need to get paid. Taxpayers are tapped out. And the bureaucracy sits in the middle like a fat raccoon guarding a dumpster fire.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Colorado Medicaid is enormous. The article reports about 1.3 million Coloradans get coverage through Health First Colorado, with a roughly $20 billion budget that now eats about a third of state spending. That is not a program line item. That is the budget’s largest teenager asking for the car keys.
- Costs are climbing fast. The story says Medicaid’s budget has grown by double digits annually for several years, while the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing has faced scrutiny over surging costs and an overbilling mistake that cost Colorado tens of millions.
- Families are begging for sanity, not speeches. Kathy Fieber of Littleton, whose adult son has Down syndrome and autism, said she hopes the commission finds wasteful spending, staff that can be trimmed, and accountability for mismanagement. Translation: compassion should not require a PhD in bureaucratic hostage negotiation.
- Lawmakers are finally asking the obvious questions. Rep. Emily Sirota says health care costs are growing faster than TABOR allows, while Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer wants to hear from hospitals, caregivers, counties, disability communities, and others about why costs have grown so dramatically. Amazing what happens when the bill comes due. People discover math.
- The commission’s job is massive. Sen. Judy Amabile called the workload gigantic and said even a handful of reforms that make the system work better would be a success. The commission plans to send detailed recommendations in December to the next governor.
My Bottom Line
The target here is not Medicaid recipients. Say that clearly and tattoo it on the forehead of every budget-room ghoul who tries to hide behind vulnerable families whenever accountability shows up. People with disabilities, low-income families, seniors, kids, and caregivers are not the problem. They are the people the system is supposed to serve.
The problem is the political and administrative class that built a maze only a grant-funded nonprofit goblin could love, then acts stunned when real families get lost inside it. Hearings. Task forces. Stakeholder conversations. Solemn promises to “listen to real stories.” Wonderful. Maybe listen before the system becomes a procedural wood chipper.
Colorado does not have a compassion shortage. It has a competence shortage. Every time the system fails, the ruling class reaches for the same toolkit: more money, more forms, more staff, more committees, and somehow never fewer dumb rules. That is not governing. That is paperwork cosplay with a $20 billion price tag.
A humane safety net should be clear, accountable, and financially honest. It should protect the people who need it without bankrupting the state or burying families and providers under forms, delays, eligibility confusion, reimbursement fights, and agency fog. Spending is not governing. Paperwork is not care. And calling a broken maze “compassion” does not make it less broken.
Source: The Sentinel
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