Can Colorado provide your family with affordable health care and excellent benefits?

Let’s find out!

SB 25-045
Colorado Health-Care Payment System Analysis
passed the legislature, and Gov. Polis signed it!

Read the bill: https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb25-045

Coloradans raise $750,000 to fund state-based, single-payer health care research

Broad coalition of grassroots organizers secure funding for Colorado School of Public Health to evaluate future of health care coverage in state.

DENVER, CO (Tuesday, February 3, 2026)—In a powerful display of grassroots philanthropy, Coloradans from across the state raised $750,000 to fund the Colorado School of Public Health’s (ColoradoSPH) study that will examine whether a single-payer health care system is feasible for the Centennial State.

“People in Colorado already choose between paying rent and buying the medicine they need, and with the federal government’s recently passed cuts to health funding, it’s about to get much worse,” said Sara Wright, Communications Director for the Colorado Foundation for Universal Health Care. “We must find new, state-based opportunities that give everyone the best possible chance to live a healthy, meaningful life.”

With this funding in hand, ColoradoSPH researchers can now evaluate whether and how Colorado could enact a nonprofit, single payer system to pay for comprehensive health care for everyone in Colorado. This follows a previous study that showed such a system could cover every Coloradan while saving the state money.

“Coloradans know the health care system is broken. The U.S. is the only industrialized democracy where people die for lack of health care or go bankrupt trying to pay for it,” said Virginia Gebhart, a retired pharmacist who helped with statewide grassroots fundraising. “However, recognizing there’s a problem isn’t the same thing as solving it; the research resulting from this bill will empower Colorado to find a smarter way forward.”

Senate Bill 25-045, which Gov. Jared Polis signed into law in May of last year, tasks the Colorado School of Public with analyzing—in depth — the potential impacts on various Colorado stakeholders of draft model legislation for a single payer universal health care system for Colorado that includes 10 essential elements up to and including mental health, vision, dental, hearing and, if feasible, long term care. Due to the state of Colorado’s budget, the 2025 measure passed without any state appropriations and instead paved the way for private charitable support for this research—leaving it up to health care advocates and public health supporters to raise the needed $750,000.

By analyzing such a system, as well as its potential impacts on all Coloradans including various stakeholders, geographic regions, and provision of care, the Health Care Payment System Analysis can help empower Colorado with critical data necessary to inform policymakers and others how to assure health care access for Coloradans. This is especially important now that the state grapples with the downstream effects of massive federal funding cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

In 2019, the Colorado legislature enacted the bipartisan Health Care Cost Savings Act, directing ColoradoSPH researchers to evaluate three options: Colorado’s existing health care system; the current system supplemented with a public option designed to achieve universal coverage; and a nonprofit single‑payer model providing comprehensive care to all residents. The analysis found that a nonprofit single‑payer approach could lead to universal coverage and generate savings. This next phase of research will be much more comprehensive. By the end of 2026, ColoradoSPH will build a microsimulation tool that enables researchers to examine different health care payment systems and assess their impacts in multiple settings. ColoradoSPH will also provide a detailed report by December 31, 2026.

With the fundraising goal met, ColoradoSPH researchers can conduct the full analysis as intended. The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Janice Marchman and Reps. Andrew Boesenecker and Karen McCormick, includes the provision that a collaborative of a broad range of stakeholders advise the researchers in open meetings, which will begin on Feb. 23.