DENVER (KDVR) — State lawmakers continue to work Monday night after working through the weekend for the special legislative session.
Legislators have started sending bills to the governor as they get ready to close things out later this week. The first two bills state lawmakers sent to the governor look to respond to changes to services made at the federal level.
“Republicans have gotten the chance to give their say and I think Democrats, in the spirit of which bipartisanship is intended, got the bills to the governor at a decent rate, at a quick rate,” said FOX31 Political Analyst Andy Boian.
State lawmakers are sending bills to the governor’s desk for his consideration. The first was a bill looking to change the ballot language for a question about the Healthy School Meals for all program. The measure awaiting the governor’s signature now looks to allow excess money from the program to be used to help cover SNAP benefits, if voters want the program to continue.
“SNAP is considered important by both sides. I’m not sure there is enough money to cover all of it, though, so we will have to see. There is concern about how much money there is left. And it feels a little bit like scraps from the table to make this program work and it is essential that it does. I have confidence the legislature will continue to make this happen, if not in special session, in January,” Boian said.
Another bill allows the state to reimburse for a loss of Medicaid coverage for services from Planned Parenthood that are not abortion care after the bill in Congress stripped funding in that area.
“Medicaid is insurance. The way insurance works is that someone goes to the doctor and the doctor sends the bill to insurance and insurance pays the bill. That’s how this works, that’s the part the federal government would pay out of head. Just to give that number some context, Colorado’s own share of Medicaid is over $17 billion, so that is a tiny, tiny fraction, it’s 0.0007% of the Medicaid budget,” said Jack Teter of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. “There is not actually an appropriation for the bill. Right now, it doesn’t cost anything, because right now this is held up in the courts. So right now, today, federal Medicaid is still paying for these services. What this bill does is says if federal Medicaid stops paying for these services, the state will make up the difference so that people don’t lose access to their primary care provider.”
Republicans at the Capitol raised concerns about lawmakers using the time in session on matters unrelated to state tax policy.
“I guess my closing message on this is we do not have the money, we don’t have any more money. So maybe instead of talking about how we can spend more money or tax the people more, maybe we should talk about what we can maybe do without to make this actually work,” said House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese as lawmakers voted on the Healthy School Meals for All Expansion measure.
Senators sent several tax bills to the governor on Monday. One repeals special tax credits for insurance companies, the other repeals income tax deductions for higher-earning businesses. A third calls on the state to eliminate a four percent rebate businesses in Colorado get for calculating their sales taxes. Senators also approved a bill that would reallocate state funding for the grey wolf reintroduction program to fund healthcare.
Anthony Sutton is a business strategist and writer with a passion for management, leadership, and entrepreneurship. With years of experience in the corporate world, he shares insights on business growth, strategy, and innovation through management-opleiding.org.
