April 14, 2026 01:22 PM UTC

Thanks, Republicans! Nine Colorado Hospitals at Risk of Closure

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• by: Colorado Pols

We’ve talked at length in this space about the danger to rural hospitals resulting from President Trump’s “big beautiful bullshit bill” last July.

The bill is coming due, and it’s bad news for Coloradans and politicians such as Rep. Jeff “Bread Sandwich” Hurd (R-Grand Junction) who made a lot of half-assed promises about protecting rural hospitals before voting (twice) to shank them in the back. As a press release from Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Denver) explains:

Hickenlooper underscored the devastating impact of the growing health care crisis in Colorado following a new report by Public Citizen, which found that nine hospitals across the state are among those most at risk of reducing medical services or, in more severe cases, potential closure, as a result of Republican-backed cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.

“We’re facing a health care crisis, and this administration is only making things worse,” said Hickenlooper. “Colorado hospitals are at risk because the White House cut health care to fund tax breaks for the wealthiest, all while families are paying double or triple for care. We won’t stop fighting to make health care more affordable and accessible for every Coloradan.”

The report from Public Citizen is a doozy. It lists nine Colorado hospitals at “high risk” of closing because of two factors: 1) At least 20% of the hospital’s funding mix from 2002-24 came from Medicaid, CHIP, or other government programs, and 2) The hospital had negative net profit margins during the same time period. Here’s the Colorado hospitals now on the brink:

♦ Platte Valley Medical Center (Brighton, CO)
♦ UCHealth Grandview Hospital (Colorado Springs, CO)
♦ Prowers Medical Center (Lamar, CO)
♦ Longmont United Hospital (Longmont, CO)
♦ St. Vincent General Hospital (Leadville, CO)
♦ St. Elizabeth Hospital (Fort Morgan, CO)
♦ Denver Health Medical Center (Denver, CO)
♦ North Colorado Medical Center (Greeley, CO)
♦ St. Mary-Corwin Hospital (Pueblo, CO)

The key point here is that none of this is a surprise. Hurd publicly acknowledged the danger to Colorado hospitals on multiple occasions, yet he and fellow Republican Reps. Lauren Boebert (CO-04), Jeff Crank (CO-05), and Gabe Evans (CO-08) voted in favor of HR-1 regardless.

Republicans tried to protect rural hospitals with the creation of a $50 billion “Rural Health Transformation Program,” but as NPR reported in March, that fund was so poorly designed that it’s making things worse:

Congressional Republicans created the fund as a last-minute sweetener to their One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law last summer. The funding was intended to offset disproportionate fallout anticipated in rural communities from the law, which is expected to slash Medicaid spending by nearly $1 trillion over 10 years…

…Brock Slabach, chief operations officer of the National Rural Health Association, said, “There’s a proper concern from rural hospital administrators that this funding is not going to where it was intended.”

He said cutting services that lose money could backfire in the long run. For example, he said, halting labor and delivery care might drive more people out of small towns, further reducing hospitals’ patient numbers and revenue.

The type of hospital services that states will assess matters, said Tony Shih, a senior adviser at the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit focused on making health care more equitable.

“If the end result is that high-margin services are taken away from local hospitals with nothing given back in return, it can be financially harmful,” he said.

This will all get worse before it gets better. As POLITICO reports, new work requirements for Medicaid that will go into effect in January are a health care disaster in the making:

The Medicaid work law, which Republicans passed on a party-line vote as a cost-saving measure to pay for their megabill, is predicted to kick millions, including many working adults, off the federal insurance when it takes effect around the country next January. The Trump administration and GOP officials maintain the rules will help root out fraud in the program and encourage people to get jobs, while the Democrats are counting on the cuts being a liability for Republicans in the midterms.

POLITICO highlights the expected problems for one of Colorado’s neighbors:

Nebraska Appleseed estimates that about two-thirds of the state’s Medicaid expansion population — around 54,000 people — will lose their insurance once the rules are in force, including many people who are working or have a legitimate exemption but can’t navigate the process.

The obsession by Trump and Congressional Republicans with rooting out “fraud” has proven difficult to achieve in practice. When Georgia implemented work requirements for Medicaid recipients, administrative costs ended up costing twice as much money as the state spent on health care…and didn’t do anything to improve employment numbers or health care accessibility.

But hey, at least rich people got bigger tax cuts!