Every family deserves a healthy start
Cover All Coloradans
Cover All Coloradans passed with bipartisan support and has been signed into law!
Thank you to our bill sponsors, steering committee, community members, and endorsing organizations!
Health Insurance Matters
Early access to comprehensive and affordable health care supports greater outcomes for all our communities. When our children are covered, they grow to be healthier, thriving adults.
Health Care is a Right
We all deserve a healthy life. In Colorado, pregnant people and children who are undocumented currently have no access to affordable health coverage. Where we were born or how much money we have shouldn’t determine whether we can take care of ourselves and our families.
Investing in Our Future
A healthy child will be able to grow into adulthood and make positive economic and social impacts in their communities. We must provide a foundation for our children that prioritizes their health and well-being. The future of Colorado depends on it.
It’s time to
Cover All Coloradans
For decades, Colorado has been working to expand access to excellent prenatal and pregnancy-related care and get every Colorado child covered. Unfortunately, thousands of pregnant people and children with undocumented immigration status in low-income families are still left out. We have the power to ensure these last groups finally have the coverage they need. Colorado must join the growing list of states ensuring that families can get covered, starting with pregnancy and extending through childhood. Better health care for pregnant people and kids is a win for families, communities, and our state’s economic future. We can’t afford to leave any families behind or our whole state will fall behind – it’s time to finish what we started. Cover All Coloradans will improve and expand health coverage options available to children and pregnant people, regardless of immigration status, while leveraging the use of federal dollars the state is currently leaving on the table. It’s not too much to ask that every pregnant person and child in Colorado have access to affordable, comprehensive coverage.
Health insurance coverage is an important social determinant of health and a building block of family financial security. Perhaps at no time are these benefits more important than during pregnancy and childhood.
Uninsured Rates for Women (18-44) in Colorado, 2019
- Non Hispanic/Latinx 4.8%
- Hispanic/Latinx 14.1%
Uninsured Rates for Children in Colorado, 2019
- Non Hispanic/Latinx 1.3%
- Hispanic/Latinx 7.5%
While efforts to expand access to health insurance in Colorado have reduced uninsured rates, wide disparities by race and ethnicity remain. In Colorado, Hispanic/Latinx women of reproductive age are three times more likely to be uninsured, compared to their non-Hispanic peers, and Latinx children are twice as likely to be uninsured.
This bill will
Expand Coverage
Provide full health care coverage using existing federal funding for pregnant people who would otherwise be eligible for Medicaid and CHP+ if not for their immigration status, and continues coverage through 12 months postpartum.
Provide full health care coverage to children, regardless of immigration status, through age 18.
Provide Support
Provide pregnancy and postpartum support by improving access to parental support programs.
Collect Data
Collect data for improved health care equity by strengthening and permanently authorizing CDPHE’s Health eMoms Survey.
Expand Enrollment
Expand health insurance enrollment by creating a Special Enrollment Period for pregnancy so that people can sign up for insurance when they become pregnant and not have to wait until later in the year.
The ongoing pandemic has exposed the disparities that communities of color face when they are routinely and systemically denied access to care they need. Expanding access to all children and pregnant and postpartum people, regardless of immigration status, is fundamental to achieving health equity in Colorado. Communities of color in Colorado experience some of the biggest disparities in health care including:
- Wide disparities by race and ethnicity in insurance coverage, despite efforts to expand access
- Higher rates of preventable, pregnancy-related deaths
- Fear of enrolling in coverage for mixed status families
Many other states have already taken up these policy options
