November 12, 2025
To the Honorable Jeff Hurd,
As millions of families across the country struggle to pay for the high and rising cost of health care, we are urging you to oppose any deal to reopen the government that does not extend the enhancements to the premium tax credit. These crucial enhanced premium tax credits are set to expire at the end of 2025 and must be extended permanently, otherwise there will be disastrous financial consequences for all Americans, and especially the working families in your district.
The enhanced premium tax credits have helped roughly 100,000 Coloradans enroll in more affordable health insurance coverage and have led to a much more stable individual market for private insurance. The loss of the enhanced premium tax credits will have devastating consequences, especially when layered with looming cuts to Medicaid coverage from H.R.1.
The expiration of this essential financial protection is leading to a substantially less healthy and deteriorating risk pool in the individual market, resulting in Colorado insurers submitting the largest rate increases we’ve seen in recent years. We will likely see large rate increases in years to come as well, adding to the pain for Coloradans over time and leaving more of your constituents uninsured.
For Coloradans, this combination of rate spikes and decreased financial assistance is disastrous. At the start of open enrollment on November 1, Coloradans who continue to qualify for tax credits saw average net premium increases over 101% across the state. In rural Colorado, where we saw the biggest gains in enrollment with the enhanced tax credits, the average net increases are even larger – especially in your district. 36,000 Coloradans will lose access to tax credits altogether, which is hitting people the hardest in rural and high cost areas.
As your district is overwhelmingly rural, with lower household incomes than a large part of our state, your constituents are particularly reliant on state and federal assistance to bring down the cost of health coverage – the impacts of HR1 will be acutely felt in CD3. Western Slope residents face the highest and most unaffordable premiums as the cost of insurance on the individual market has increased, especially without the extension of the enhanced premium tax credits. Please see these live charts for the financial impact: Chart1, Chart2. CD3 spans four of Colorado’s nine insurance rating areas, including two of the highest rating areas in Colorado (rating area 5 and 9), which cover more than half of the district. Your constituents are depending on you to push for an extension on the tax credits, so they aren’t locked out of coverage.
This will not only affect Coloradans’ coverage, but local economies. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation analysis showed that roughly half of individual market enrollees are affiliated with small businesses. The loss of the enhanced premium tax credits and resulting losses in coverage will have a big ripple effect on local economies with this hit to small businesses and their employees.
The harm will also have a cascading effect on our healthcare providers and systems, as coverage losses multiply with the coming changes and cuts to Medicaid, and are exacerbated in rural areas which have low hospital competition – Colorado counties with low hospital and insurance carrier competition have higher insurance premiums, per a Colorado Health Institute report. These cuts to Coloradans’ healthcare will lead to reduced healthcare services and potential closures of hospitals, clinics, and providers, causing even further harm to local economies and communities in your district.
We are hearing increased anxiety and devastation from Coloradans across the state who are worried Congress will not step up to help them. Colorado families are depending on you to stop this crisis before it forces them to make impossible choices. A few of them have offered their stories about the importance of the enhanced premium tax credits, below.
In your district, Monique Terpstra lives in Grand Junction and runs a small nonprofit. She has Type 1 Diabetes and is an enrolled tribal member who works and lives four hours from the reservation. She has to cross literal mountain passes to get the life-saving care and insulin she needs – often a dangerous venture. If she is unable to enroll in affordable insurance through the individual marketplace, she would have to try to enroll in Medicaid.
Another constituent in your district lives in New Castle – one of the most expensive areas in the state for premiums. She and her husband run a local print publishing business, a labor of love that requires them to purchase insurance on the marketplace. Without subsidies provided by the Affordable Care Act, she would have to pay $923 a month for a bronze-level plan (the worst coverage level) with an $8000 deductible. If she were to max out her deductible or experience a medical emergency, her total liability could hit $20,000 – her entire annual income. The subsidies are not just helpful, they are essential. Without the Affordable Care Act and the enhanced premium tax credit, she and her husband are going to have to make difficult decisions about their healthcare versus their livelihood.
Yet another constituent in Durango in your district, a Certified Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner, has ownership and employment interests in five different businesses – one of which has the resources to have group health insurance for its employees. The rest of the employees qualify for financial assistance for premiums through the health insurance exchange and self-pay for insurance. Without the enhanced premium tax credits, those businesses would not be able to afford small group insurance and the businesses would fold, leaving the employees of four distinct businesses unemployed, and uninsured.
A Doctorate Nurse Practitioner in Pediatrics, Betsy Kastak, in your district in La Plata County, whose insurance previously cost $350 per month with the tax credits, has seen that the new premium cost has spiked to $1400 per month. Along with her husband, also on self-pay; this is a household cost of $2800 per month. She works part-time at Pueblo Community College in Durango and commutes to Mancos, Colorado. She and her husband are close to retirement age, in poor health with chronic health conditions, and absolutely cannot survive without health insurance. With the increased rates due to expiring tax credits, this family will not be able to afford the life-saving insurance they require.
Right now, you have a choice to make: will you bring healthcare costs down for your constituents, or will you show that you don’t care about their cost-of-living concerns? The CR vote is an opportunity to show working families in your district that you stand with them. Don’t leave health coverage out of reach for vulnerable Coloradans who are relying on you.
Please oppose any deal to reopen the government that does not extend the enhancements to the premium tax credit, and pledge that you will vote to lower healthcare costs for your constituents by extending the ACA tax credits. Failure to act will lead to thousands of your constituents becoming uninsured, not being able to afford the care they need, delaying care, falling into medical debt, and facing increasing health care costs.
Coloradans should not have to make the impossible choice between healthcare and other basic necessities. Urge your colleagues to protect the health coverage and care Coloradans rely on.
Thank you for your consideration,
Signed by:
- Adams County Health Department
- Advocates for Compassionate Therapy Now
- AFSCME
- All Families Deserve a Chance Coalition
- ALS United Rocky Mountain
- Bell Policy Center
- Centennial State Prosperity
- Center for Health Progress
- CF United
- Chanda Center for Health
- Christy Deem, SW Colorado Nurses Association Region 5 Director, Rural ANT co-chair
- Chronic Care Collaborative
- Cobalt
- Colorado AFL-CIO
- Colorado Black Women for Political Action
- Colorado Center on Law and Policy
- Colorado Children’s Campaign
- Colorado Civic Engagement Roundtable
- Colorado Coalition for the Homeless
- Colorado Consumer Health Initiative
- Colorado Cross Disability Coalition
- Colorado Counties Acting Together
- Colorado Fiscal Institute
- Colorado Foundation for Universal Health Care
- Colorado Gynecologic Cancer Alliance
- Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition
- Colorado Latino Leadership, Advocacy, and Research Organization (CLLARO)
- Colorado Organizations and Individuals Responding to HIV/AIDS (CORA)
- Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights (COLOR)
- Colorado RESULTS
- Colorado Safety Net Collaborative
- Community Dental Health
- Counties & Commissioners Acting Together (CCAT)
- Cuenta Conmigo Coop
- Ebert Family Clinic
- Family Voices Colorado
- Front Range Pediatric Therapies
- Grand County Rural Health Network
- Health District of Northern Larimer County
- Healthier Colorado
- Hunger Free Colorado
- Jura Health
- League of Women Voters of Colorado
- Lupus Colorado
- Meapta Inc.
- Mental Health Colorado
- Mi Familia Vota
- Mi Familia en Acción
- Mutual Aid Monday
- Mountain Mamas
- National Multiple Sclerosis Society
- One Colorado
- Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains
- Prime Health
- Progress Now, Colorado
- Promotores De Esperanza
- Protect our Care Colorado coalition
- Provecho Collective
- Rocky Mountain MicroFinance Institute
- Rocky Mountain Multiple Sclerosis Center
- SEIU Local 105
- Slope Cares
- Spring Institute for Intercultural Learning
- The Resource Exchange
- Together Colorado
- Vivent Health
- Western Colorado Alliance
- Western Slope Native American Resource Center
- Young Invincibles
- Youth Healthcare Alliance