On Monday, The Washington Free Beacon posted an article about a Colorado healthcare program that began in 2005.
The article reports:
A Colorado program launched in 2025 to provide taxpayer-funded health care to illegal immigrant “pregnant persons” and children is costing seven times more than expected. The program, which was estimated to cost less than $15 million but has ballooned in costs to nearly $105 million this fiscal year, has emerged as a sore spot as the state grapples with a $1.5 billion budget shortfall that could lead to deep cuts to Medicaid and other programs for citizens.
Two of the Democrats who supported the program in the Colorado legislature are now seeking a promotion to the House of Representatives.
Democratic lawmakers, including former state representative Shannon Bird, one of the candidates vying to represent Colorado’s Eighth Congressional District, passed a law in 2022 to create the Cover All Coloradans program. It provides state-funded health care for “pregnant persons” and children who would qualify for Medicaid if they weren’t illegal immigrants. Fiscal analysts estimated at the time that the program would draw 3,700 enrollees at a cost of $14.7 million to the state.
But the illegal immigrant population in Colorado spiked as the law passed, rising from 160,000 in 2021 to more than 200,000 in 2025, according to the Pew Research Center. Costs for the Cover All Coloradans program increased sixfold to $104.5 million to Colorado taxpayers after 28,000 immigrants enrolled in the program when it launched in 2025, the Colorado Sun reported.
Free stuff is expensive!
The article notes:
Colorado’s Democratic House speaker Julie McCluskie, the lead sponsor of the Cover All Coloradans program in 2022, said there have been “unanticipated impacts” to the illegal immigrant health care program since its launch last year.
“At the time we made budget decisions — whether it was during the pandemic, following the pandemic — we made those decisions based on the forecasts in front of us,” McCluskie told the Sun.
We don’t need more fiscally irresponsible people in the U.S. House!