As Colorado Public Radio reports, after the reforms of the Affordable Care Act, Colorado’s uninsured rate dropped from 14.3 percent in 2013 to 6.7 percent in 2015 and about 500,000 people in the state gained health insurance coverage and about 400,000 people got covered through expanded eligibility of Medicaid.
But the ACA also brought with it turbulence, as insurers starting dropping out of Colorado’s exchange, causing prices to rise. In 2017, in some parts of rural Colorado, premiums shot up by as much as 40 percent.
A large majority of voters in those areas, particularly the eastern plains, voted for President Donald Trump in hopes he would bring change to health care.
But its rural communities that would potentially be the most impacted by a change to the ACA, as Congressional Republicans’ initial Obamacare replacement plan includes deep cuts to Medicaid.