2026 Post-Session Report

ByEmily Bishop

In yet another fiscally challenging legislative session your advocacy played a major role in defending primary care and healthcare access. Thank you to all the incredible Doctor of the Day volunteers that took part in covering 42 days this session! We are so grateful for all of you that took the time to testify in committee, speak at press conferences, and join in lobbying lawmakers. Our successes this year are due to your engagement and expertise that is highly regarded under the dome. 

Key Legislative Outcomes for Family Medicine

Practice and Scope

  • SB26-189: Automated Decision Making Technologies
    • Ensures developers share legal responsibility with providers for any discrimination caused by AI in clinical settings. This protects healthcare professionals from being solely liable for the technologies they use.
  • HB26-1324 Sunset Division of Professions and Occupations and HB26-1307 Sunset Medical Practice Act
    • CAFP engagement during the sunset reviews of the Division of Professions and Occupations and the Medical Practice Act prevented additional administrative burden for physician licensure and successfully protected the medical board’s ability to select the peer assistance program.
  • HB26-1231 Physical Therapists Performing Sports Physicians
    • This bill would have allowed physical therapists to perform sports physicians in the state. Along with many partners we were able to prevent this legislation from passing. It was important to the coalition to ensure that young athletes are seen by physicians to ensure safe participation and continue to see their provider frequently.

Affordability and Access

  • SB26-178: Health Insurance Affordability Measures
    • Increases funding by $140 million for the Health Insurance Affordability Enterprise, which provides reinsurance, subsidies and funds for OmniSalud. This will continue the important work the enterprise does of increasing access to affordable care and coverage.
  • HB26-1267 Limitations on Collection Actions for Medical Debt
    • Although this bill did not pass this session CAFP worked with proponents to amend the bill to ensure that bad actors are held accountable without impacting providers or small practices. We intend to continue conversations with proponents. 
  • SB26-140 Exempt Drugs from Prescription Drug Affordability Board Reviews
    • CAFP is dedicated to improving healthcare affordability for patients which includes affordable medications. Working with a strong coalition of partners we were able to defeat SB26-140 which would have exempted two-thirds of drugs eligible for affordability review from being eligible for an upper payment limit, an incredible tool to improve access to life saving medications.
  • SB26-032: Promotion of Immunizations
    • Promotes access to immunization and ensures the state of Colorado continues to follow evidence based vaccine schedules recommended by providers including AAP and CAFP.
  • HB26-1262 Patient Access to Compounded Items
    • Compounding medications were a hot topic this session. CAFP took a support position on HB26-1262 which has been signed into law. This piece of legislation ensures that the state has general guardrails for the use of compounding drugs in order to avoid costly litigation to Colorado that we have seen in other states. 
  • SB26-066 Regulation of Compounded Weight-Loss Medication
    • On the other hand CAFP opposed SB26-066 which would have created additional barriers and liability challenges for providers prescribing on counseling patients on the use of compounded GLP-1s. This bill did not pass the house, to avoid these negative impacts.

Budget Highlights

This year’s legislative session was shadowed by the challenging budget season. Having cut $1.2 billion in August of 2025 during special session we were heading into a budget cycle that required an approximate additional billion dollars in cuts. Medicaid is a third of the state budget and education is another third which meant there were no pretty options for finding these funds. 

Proposed cuts included an across the board 3.9% rate cut for medicaid reimbursement, $60 million cut to indirect medical education, and a $3 million cut to local public health offices. Through the incredible work of our lobby team and other provider groups the final budget had a much less harmful impact of a 2% across the board rate cut, no cut to indirect medical education, and a $1.5 million cut to local public health offices.

It is hard to imagine cuts being painted in a positive light, but in these challenging times we are grateful to our partners to have lessened the impact on our members and their patients. Legislators understood the importance of primary care investment and the importance of access to affordable healthcare. We are proud of the work we accomplished this year to prevent more harmful cuts to essential programs and services that you provide to your communities.

Looking Ahead

We are heading into an eventful election season! This year’s election will result in a new governor, attorney general, treasurer and secretary of state due to term-limits. We expect to see many new faces in the state legislature elections as well. Ten state legislators have reached their term limits, seven in the house and three in the senate. This brings forward the opportunity to meet new champions of family medicine. CAFP will begin our endorsement process at the end of June. We will be interviewing candidates in July and August. If you are interested in being a part of the interviewing process please reach out to Isabel at isabel@coloradoafp.org. This is a great opportunity to meet potential legislators and guide the endorsement process for your organization. 

This ballot season will also include several ballot initiatives. CAFP is monitoring and reviewing several initiatives that may intersect with family medicine. As needed these will be reviewed by the legislative committee. CAFP has endorsed one ballot initiative thus far, Initiative #195 the graduated income tax initiative. For more information on this initiative visit our previous blog post (please note the initiative has been renumbered since this post, it was #181 and is now #195)

For any questions on the upcoming election season and CAFP’s involvement please contact our Director of Policy and Government Relations, Isabel, at isabel@coloradoafp.org.