Colorado Now Pays for Abortion, and Its Budget Estimate Counts Fewer Births as Savings

What does a state budget office call a child who is never born?

In Colorado, it calls it a savings.

Colorado voters have decided this question twice. In 1984, voters amended the state constitution to ban using public money to pay for abortion. In November 2024, voters approved Amendment 79 with 61.97 percent of the vote. A change to the state constitution needs 55 percent, so it passed. Amendment 79 made abortion a right under the state constitution, said government may not "deny, impede, or discriminate against" that right, including by refusing to allow insurance coverage, and repealed the 1984 funding ban.

SB25-183 is how the Legislature carried that out. The title of the bill says "Concerning Coverage for Certain Pregnancy-Related Services." The text of the bill uses a different phrase throughout: "abortion care."

• Medicaid is government health coverage for people with low incomes. The federal government and the state share the cost.
• Child Health Plan Plus, or CHP+, is Colorado's low-cost health coverage for children and pregnant women in working families who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid.

1. It pays with state money only. When abortion is provided through Colorado Medicaid, "the services must be reimbursed by state funds only." A federal rule called the Hyde Amendment generally bars federal Medicaid money from paying for abortion. So Colorado taxpayers pay the whole cost.
2. It files abortion under family planning. The bill adds "abortion care" to Medicaid's list of family planning services, the same category as routine birth control visits. In Colorado Medicaid, family planning services come with no deductible and no copay.
3. It adds abortion to CHP+. Starting January 1, 2026, CHP+ must cover abortion for all pregnant women enrolled in the program.
4. It removes the old limits. The bill deletes language tying Medicaid payments to the old constitutional funding ban, and it repeals three state laws that barred public money for abortion.
5. It lets the state overspend. It adds abortion to the list of costs that the state's health care agency may go over budget on at the end of the year, with the Governor's approval.
6. It speeds up the private insurance requirement. Colorado already required health insurance plans to cover abortion. For plans bought by individuals and small businesses, that requirement was waiting on a federal review. SB25-183 removes the wait.

The bill also sets aside $2,928,800 in state tax money for the 2025-26 budget year that the state health care agency "may use" for abortion.

Every bill in Colorado gets a fiscal note, an estimate by the Legislature's nonpartisan staff of what the bill will cost. The fiscal note for SB25-183 is where the bill's logic is written down.

The staff estimated abortion services would cost $2,928,800 in the first year. They also estimated $3,215,051 in "labor and delivery cost savings," because paying for abortion is expected to reduce the number of births that Medicaid and CHP+ pay for. The estimate assumes "30 percent of these pregnancies would have gone to term," meaning those babies would have been born without this coverage. Put the numbers together and the state's official estimate shows the bill saving money: $81,551 in its first year and $367,802 in its second.

Picture a ledger with two columns. One column holds the cost of the abortions. The other holds the cost of the births that will no longer happen. The second column is bigger. The state's estimate counts the children who are not born as savings, and the bill comes out ahead.

The fiscal staff did their job. Their task is to estimate costs, and fewer births do mean fewer hospital bills. That is exactly why the estimate is so revealing. When the math is done honestly, the only way this policy saves money is by producing fewer babies.

Supporters have a strong argument. Colorado voters approved Amendment 79 by almost 62 percent. The amendment says government may not discriminate against abortion, including in insurance coverage. A Medicaid program that covered every pregnancy outcome except abortion could be challenged under that amendment. In their view, the Legislature was simply doing what voters chose.

The bill also kept a protection for religious employers. An employer does not have to provide abortion coverage if it conflicts with the employer's "sincerely held religious beliefs." That protection survived, and it deserves credit.

Those points are fair, and the vote was real. Still, Amendment 79 removed the ban on public funding. It did not write this bill. Lawmakers made choices that went beyond what the amendment required. They chose to file abortion under "family planning" with no copay. They chose to let the agency overspend on it. They chose a title that does not use the word. And the protection for a religious employer does nothing for a religious taxpayer. A pro-life nurse in Pueblo pays for this program with her taxes whether her employer objects or not, and Colorado gives her no way to opt out.

In 2022, Colorado passed the Reproductive Health Equity Act, which put abortion access into state law and required private insurance to cover it. In 2024, voters put the right in the state constitution and ended the funding ban. In 2025, SB25-183 moved abortion into Medicaid and CHP+ with state dollars and let the state overspend on it. Each step made the next one possible. And the budget estimate now gives future lawmakers a number to point to: by the state's own math, this program pays for itself.

SB25-183 passed the Senate 22-12 and the House 40-21. Its lead sponsors were Senators Robert Rodriguez and Lindsey Daugherty and Representatives Lorena Garcia and Julie McCluskie, the Speaker of the House, all Democrats. Governor Jared Polis signed it April 24, 2025. It carried a "safety clause," which makes a law take effect without a public vote and blocks citizens from putting it on the ballot. As of September 24, 2026, we found no lawsuit challenging it.

A state that counts fewer births as savings has told you what it thinks those births were worth.

This is our read of the law. We encourage you to read it yourself and reach your own conclusions.