SPENDING OF ALL KINDS, BUT YEAH: Colorado due for a reckoning over runaway Medicaid costs.

According to HCPF and the Governor’s office, General Fund spending on Medicaid increased at an average rate of 6 percent from fiscal year 2015-16 to fiscal year 2018-19. However, after the federal government windfall from COVID, General Fund spending blew up, growing at an average rate of 19 percent from fiscal year 2021-22 to fiscal year 2024-25.

Health care is rapidly crowding out most other spending, and is the primary driver of the state’s budget challenges, as those federal funds have since expired.

HCPF now accounts for nearly one-third of the General Fund and is also the fastest-growing department.

Add to that, Manatt suggests that “25 percent of all U.S. healthcare spending may be wasteful, due to overtreatment, low-value care, poor care coordination, pricing failures, fraud and abuse, and undue administrative complexities.”

Governor Polis and HCPF engaged Manatt to analyze Colorado’s Medicaid and CHP+ programs, identify cost-saving solutions, and propose policy recommendations.

I don’t trust them. State spending — adjusting for inflation — grew 31% per capita under my so-called “libertarian” governor since 2018-2019, and the only thing holding back his Democrats is the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR), that they’ve steadily chipped away at over the last several years.