I spent years in the Colorado House fighting for working families. For good jobs and to bring down the cost of living. For quality schools. And most importantly, for access to healthcare for every Coloradan.
But access was only part of it. The harder fight was making sure care was actually affordable.
One thing I kept hearing, over and over, was this: “I didn’t know what the bill was going to cost until it showed up in the mail.”
That’s not a bug in our healthcare system. That’s how it was designed. Hidden prices, confusing bills, and a system that keeps patients in the dark. It puts the power in the hands of insurers and hospitals, not the people paying for care.
And it hits the hardest on communities that already have the least. Low-income families, people without steady jobs or employer coverage are those most directly impacted. They can’t afford a surprise $4,000 bill. Instead, they delay care, they skip follow-ups, and ultimately, they get sicker.
That’s why price transparency isn’t just a policy issue. It’s a justice issue.
Colorado has made real progress on expanding coverage. After the Affordable Care Act passed, then-Governor John Hickenlooper expanded Medicaid. Our uninsured rate dropped from over 14 percent to under six percent. Hundreds of thousands of Coloradans got coverage who didn’t have it before.
But coverage alone isn’t enough. If you have insurance and you still can’t afford the care, or you’re afraid to use it because you don’t know what it’ll cost, that’s not a system that’s working.
Fortunately, Colorado’s Congressional delegation is helping to fix this. Over the last few years, Senator Hickenlooper has introduced multiple bills aimed at increasing price transparency in healthcare. This session, that’s taken the form of the Patients Deserve Price Tags Act, which would require providers to publish their costs upfront.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates similar transparency reforms to pharmacy benefit managers could save $2 billion. Extended to other medical care, this is real money back in the hands of the Coloradans who need it most.
When prices are hidden, patients end up paying more and going without care they need. Transparency helps level the playing field. It lets patients make real decisions. And it forces providers to compete on cost, which brings prices down over time.
But transparency reforms won’t matter if Medicaid gets gutted first.
In 2025, Republicans pushed through President Trump’s signature bill, H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The measure was a major tax cut and handout to the top one percent of Americans. But it was paid for in part by cutting nearly $1 trillion from the Medicaid budget over the next 10 years. These were the largest cuts in the program’s history and could lead to nearly 11 million Americans losing coverage and hundreds of hospitals closing, including up to 150,000 Coloradans and nine hospitals across our state.
On top of that, last year, when Congress finally ended the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, Affordable Care Act subsidies expired. Colorado’s Democratic delegation pushed back, but the subsidies expired anyway, leaving marketplace enrollees facing sharply higher premiums and our state with even more ground to make up.
Healthcare costs are still too high. Access is still uneven. And now, President Trump and Republicans in Congress are pushing to gut key programs further.
Senators Hickenlooper and Bennet have stood strong against these potentially devastating cuts from the Trump Administration. We need every member of our congressional delegation to keep fighting for Colorado families as long as healthcare coverage is under attack. Healthcare shouldn’t be a privilege.
Daneya Esgar is the former Majority Leader of the Colorado House of Representatives and a longtime advocate for reducing health care costs for families.
