Medicaid, individual market health insurance would be harder to get in Colorado under GOP bill

Veronica Montoya relies on Medicaid for the infusions that restrain her immune system from attacking her body and worries she may lose that access if Congress adopts drastic changes to the robustness care effort Provisions of congressional Republicans One Big Beautiful Bill Act would add work requirements for particular people covered by Medicaid and require them to go through the full process of proving eligibility twice a year instead of once The bill backed by President Donald Trump also would restrict immigrants access to wellbeing insurance and raise costs for people who buy their robustness coverage on the exchange while extending tax cuts for higher earners and spending more on national defense Taken together the provisions would create hurdles for people who don t have job-based coverage to find and keep soundness insurance through Medicaid or the marketplace even if they are employed or have a disability While the bill wouldn t entirely return the U S fitness insurance area to its pre-Affordable Care Act state it would take away options that helped bring down the uninsured rate experts declared The House passed the law in late May by a single vote The bill s chances in the Senate aren t clear both fiscal hawks and centrist Republicans have expressed concerns At face value the work requirements shouldn t affect Montoya because she has a disability and has caregiving responsibilities for her mother But she also knows proving that could be a predicament Even without changes Montoya mentioned she sometimes struggles to prove her continuing eligibility because her condition causes brain fog It s very stressful to deal with a system that is set up to catch you she disclosed The wellbeing agenda nonprofit KFF estimated between and people in Colorado could lose their insurance mostly through falling off the Medicaid rolls over the next years because of the bill If pandemic-era increased subsidies for individual coverage expire this year the number of uninsured people in the state could rise by to Colorado produced different estimates finding as multiple as people could leave the individual marketplace because the bill would make insurance harder to get and more expensive The state hasn t estimated how multiple people could lose Medicaid coverage About million people in Colorado had Medicaid coverage as of April and about bought insurance on the individual marketplace for the current year The Congressional Budget Office estimated that about million people nationwide would become uninsured with about losing Medicaid coverage and the rest losing insurance they bought through the individual marketplace because of eligibility changes in the budget bill Another million could lose individual coverage if enhanced subsidies expire this year The bill would require specific people between and to work or complete other programs for at least hours each month States would also have the option to require applicants to show they met it in the months before applying for Medicaid If the business sector takes a downturn people may not be able to consistently work hours a month to keep their coverage noted Adam Fox deputy director of the Colorado Consumer Medical Initiative Theoretically they could fill in the gaps by volunteering when their hours fall short but no one knows how the state will track and verify that he commented Rachel Sanchez of Greeley revealed she can t hold down a job while going through her third bout with cancer Medicaid paid for her care for ovarian and colon cancers and for follow-up care that helped her recover from the physical damage that cure inflicted Now it covers her medication for leukemia which costs about for a weekly dose Sanchez s two sisters also relied on the operation during their cancer care The three inherited a genetic mutation that increases their odds of multiple cancers Not having to worry about paying for healing and eventually for supportive care as they neared the end of their lives reduced the family s stress during a terrible time she announced Cancer patients can t just get up every day and go to work and then go to healing and then go back to work she reported The bill would mandate that states go through the full process of verifying eligibility every six months for people who qualified for Medicaid under the expansion which raised the threshold for adults to qualify for Medicaid to of the poverty line or for one person The process is complicated announced Diana Corona a Denver resident Once she forgot to file chosen paperwork and only discovered she and her husband had lost coverage when he got sick It s back and forth back and forth trying to provide the right information she noted The intention behind the bill is to add friction to the system of getting and maintaining insurance through Medicaid and the individual marketplace noted Sara Collins senior scholar at the Commonwealth Fund which researches healthcare policies If it passes people will lose coverage either because they don t understand how to keep it or in the development of the individual territory because insurance has become too expensive she explained The savings projected with the bill really come from people not being able to address the system she declared Fox commented he thinks the estimates of how various people will lose coverage are low particularly for states like Colorado where county human services offices have to handle Medicaid eligibility Automated systems already check recipients income eligibility monthly so making them fill out paperwork and the counties process it twice a year instead of once just creates more opportunities for people to get lost in the shuffle he revealed Colorado can renew Medicaid coverage automatically for about three-quarters of people who qualify based on income by using existing databases revealed Marivel Klueckman eligibility division director at the Department of Physical condition Care Plan and Financing The rest have to fill out the full renewal packet If they don t return the paperwork they lose coverage even if they d still qualify The renewal packet typically runs about pages though not all parts apply to every household It focuses on changes in income and who lives in the home People who qualify for Medicaid because of a disability have to fill out a longer packet verifying their strength status and assets If the bill passes Colorado will have to assess how much the workload will increase for county offices that process the packets Klueckman commented The state will also need to look for tactics to verify how multiple hours people are working without requiring individuals to review it she commented People who lose Medicaid in the future would face more hurdles in buying coverage on the individual marketplace The bill would forbid states from allowing low-income people to enroll in the marketplace at any point during the year and would require feasible customers to verify more information before they can receive tax credit subsidies effectively ending automatic reenrollment It also would shorten marketplace enrollment window to days from Related Articles GOP tax bill would cost poor Americans a year and boost highest earners by CBO says Gov Jared Polis warns GOP bill will devastate Colorado wellness care system in Colorado third-graders had cavities or a history of tooth decay Colorado s new Behavioral Healthcare Administration is ready to invest Now budget cuts are on the way Trump s big beautiful tax bill risks food assistance for tens of thousands of Coloradans think tanks estimate Marketplace plans also will be more expensive in the coming years assuming the bill becomes law Fox declared It directly raises the maximum deductible and out-of-pocket limit that plans can set and paradoxically would raise the price of bronze and gold plans by lowering the cost of silver plans Subsidies rise or fall with the cost of silver plans Combined the marketplace and Medicaid changes will return the insurance system to something close to its state when the Affordable Care Act passed in particularly if Congress also allows larger subsidies for the individual sector to expire this year Collins declared Then Medicaid covered only adults with the lowest incomes and the individual marketplace was prohibitively expensive she revealed It s a way of repealing parts of the Affordable Care Act without really saying it she disclosed Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get vitality news sent straight to your inbox