Around half the patients at the Glenwood Springs Planned Parenthood clinic qualify for Medicaid and will now have access to abortion care through their health insurance.
The change comes under a new state bill that implements Amendment 79, which repealed Colorado’s existing ban on government funding for abortion services and enshrined abortion access in the state constitution.
The amendment passed last year with a 62% majority and the bill, SB-183, sponsored by Senate Democrats, is headed to Governor Polis’ desk. Abortions will be covered under publicly funded health insurance starting in January 2026.
“It’s clear – Coloradans believe it is your constitutional right to access the full range of reproductive health care,” said Rep. Lorena Garcia, D-Unincorporated Adams County, who co-sponsored the legislation. “Despite the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle abortion care and access, Colorado remains a beacon for reproductive freedom.”
Colorado legalized abortion in 1967, and it’s one of only a handful of states where abortion is allowed at any time during a pregnancy. But the state had a longstanding ban on using public money to pay for abortions, thanks to a ballot measure passed by voters in 1984.
That legislation left Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains and local abortion funds like the Colorado Doula Project to foot the bill for anyone with government-funded health insurance, from Medicaid recipients to public servants, like teachers, firefighters, and government employees.
Close to half of Coloradans had some type of health insurance that didn’t cover abortion care in 2024, according to Jack Teter, the regional director of government affairs at Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains.
“So many people in our community and so many of Planned Parenthood's patients had insurance, and then if they needed access to abortion care, [they] had to receive this awful news that their insurance wasn't going to cover it,” said Teter.
The Planned Parenthood center in Glenwood Springs has seen a 58% increase in patients coming from out of state since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. The new legislation will help alleviate the burden on the center by allowing more of its in-state patients to access abortion services through their health insurance plans.
Data from the 2024 election cycle shows that Amendment 79 won a majority in every congressional district in Colorado. That victory comes on the heels of a decade-long campaign by reproductive health rights organizations.
Opponents of the new legislation include the Pro-Life Colorado Fund, a coalition of 50 anti-abortion organizations. In an open letter to Gov. Jared Polis dated April 17 urging him to veto SB 183, the coalition calls the bill a, “chilling measure,” of how Colorado has strayed from valuing human life and raised concerns about the projected costs to taxpayers.
Federal law prohibits federal dollars from being used to pay for abortions, except when pregnancies endanger the life of the mother or are the result of rape or incest. That means Colorado would have to cover the full cost of abortion for Medicaid and Child Health Plan Plus recipients.
But an analysis by nonpartisan legislative staff found that the state will actually save at least $550,000 a year by paying for abortion care, since the average reimbursement cost for labor and delivery is $3,850, while a procedural abortion costs $1,300 and a medication abortion is $800.
For Teter, the new legislation is a matter of fairness, noting that a 2023 bill required private insurers begin covering abortion care for their clients this year. “We have all had the experience of having our insurance not cover something that we need,” he said. “It's a terrible feeling.”
