Experiments in mice found that genetically modified animals were more likely to have signs of metastatic cancer in their lungs if infected with flu or COVID-19 than engineered mice that researchers didn’t give a virus, said James DeGregori, deputy director of the University of Colorado Cancer Center in Aurora.

That finding launched an international partnership to determine whether the same thing happened in people, he said.

DeGregori was one of the lead investigators, alongside scientists from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, Imperial College London, University College London, University of Connecticut, Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and the COVID-19 International Research Team, based in Massachusetts.

Two datasets, from the United States and the United Kingdom, both showed a higher risk that cancer survivors with confirmed COVID-19 infections would die from metastatic cancer, compared to survivors who didn’t test positive for the virus.

The British data showed people who tested positive had about twice the risk of those who tested negative, and the American data showed about a 44% increased risk, DeGregori said. A significant number of the U.S. patients never got tested for COVID-19, however, so the risk was likely higher because of cancer deaths in people with missed infections, he said.

The American data only included breast cancer survivors, while the British data included people who were in remission from any type of cancer. The risk of death was highest in the months immediately after an infection.

COVID-19 didn’t directly cause the cancer to spread, but created an environment where dormant cells elsewhere in patients’ bodies can wake up, DeGregori said. The body responds to an infection with inflammation to kill the virus, which helps the cancer cells, he said.

“It’s kind of like collateral damage,” he said.

Drugs exist that could block one specific molecule that ramps up inflammation, but they also suppress the immune system, which is a problem when the patient has a serious infection, DeGregori said.

“You have to balance the good it does with the bad it does,” he said.

The researchers didn’t have enough data to know whether people with more-severe cases of COVID-19 were more likely to die from their cancer, DeGregori said. They also couldn’t tell if flu infections had a similar effect, because most people who have the flu don’t seek medical care, he said.

Other questions for future studies include whether the risk is the same for infections with more recent COVID-19 variants and in vaccinated people, and whether other types of infections also can help cancer spread, DeGregori said.

Not all cancer survivors have dormant cells in their bodies, and of those who do, not everyone sees those cells wake up after an infection, DeGregori said. Still, survivors who are worried about their cancer spreading might want to get vaccinated against respiratory diseases and take steps like avoiding sick people, he said.

“We don’t want to scare people, but knowledge is power,” he said. “Anything that could limit the odds of infection should limit the odds of (cancer) awakening.”

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Vukovich first found out the federal government had him listed as dead when his January payment disappeared from his bank account. He notified the Social Security Administration of the mistake, and the problem appeared resolved, but his checks didn’t come through in February or March.

He said he later learned the Department of Government Efficiency had pulled the names of people who had mistakenly been put on the deceased list who were later declared alive, and moved them back onto the deceased list.

“My name appeared as if I had died again,” Vukovich said.

When nothing he did to fix the problem proved successful, Vukovich reached out to the office of U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, a Democrat who represents Aurora. A staff member worked with the local Social Security office, and when that failed, found someone higher up in the agency who could finally get Vukovich off the death list in May.

His checks have arrived on time since then.

The staff member did an “outstanding” job, but “it’s sad that it was her instead of Social Security that got it fixed,” Vukovich said.

The Social Security Administration estimated that fewer than 1% of the roughly 3.1 million death reports it receives annually need corrections. Typically, states report deaths, but some reports come from family members, funeral homes or other agencies.

The agency distributes about $1.3 trillion each year to 59 million retirees who paid into the system.

Vukovich said a person answering the phone for the agency told him the problem most likely resulted from someone entering the wrong Social Security number for a deceased beneficiary.

A Montana woman who read a previous article about Vukovich’s situation told him about a man also named Alexander Vukovich who had recently died, but he doesn’t know if someone could have mixed them up.

Vukovich advised anyone who gets a letter from Social Security that doesn’t make sense to schedule an appointment with their local office, and to bring someone to help keep track of everything the staff says. Even so, fixing mistakes is a challenge when different parts of the agency aren’t on the same page, he said.

“I just dreaded going to the mailbox to see if I’d get another letter,” he said.

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Jerry Morgan stepped in to work the grill in front of the Denver Youth Program’s location on Welton Street on Thursday afternoon, while Felipe Perez headed to talk with the trauma patient. Next time, they’ll switch roles. Both do outreach with young people at risk of becoming victims or perpetrators of violence.

The connection between a cheesy lunch special and preventing violence might not be obvious to everyone, but in a neighborhood where food insecurity is common, a free meal can start a conversation that leads a young person to a positive path, such as the Denver Youth Program’s outdoor recreation group or its health care career shadowing option, Morgan said.

“We have to be able to get people the services they need,” he said.

Murders are trending down in Denver, with about 45% fewer people killed by others in the first six months of 2025 than in the same period of 2024. Data from 30 large cities around the country found an average drop of 17%, according to the Council on Criminal Justice.

Preventing violence doesn’t happen without addressing the full picture of someone’s life, said Johnnie Williams, executive director of the Denver Youth Program. If young men can’t get a job to help their families buy food or keep the electricity on, they turn to illicit opportunities, he said.

“Some people deal with that by selling drugs. Some people deal with it by joining gangs,” he said.

At the Denver Youth Program, they can meet some of those needs through programs such as healing circles for young people recovering from trauma and a T-shirt shop that offers a paycheck and job training, Williams said. They also help youth and their families navigate the health care and social services systems.

“It’s everybody’s job” to help steer young people away from violence, he said.

The organization also attempts to deescalate disputes before they end in gunfire, and to intervene after shootings to prevent retaliation. The At-Risk Intervention and Mentoring, or AIM, program sends “credible messengers” to Denver Health, University of Colorado Hospital and other metro hospitals that see significant numbers of patients who survived a gunshot wound.

Credible messengers are community members who build trust with those most likely to be either victims or perpetrators of gun violence, who are disproportionately young men of color. Typically, they were previously involved in violence, and some have spent time in prison.

Perez, who was an AIM client as a young man and now works there as a responder, said seeing someone with similar experiences who isn’t judging them is powerful at a vulnerable moment. It can open people up to receiving mental health care and other help they need to avoid getting hurt again, or harming someone else, he said.

“They see someone that resembles them and they feel safe,” he said.

Studies seem to back up the idea that the days after someone sustains a bullet or stab wound are an effective time to change their direction. A hospital intervention program in Indianapolis found that over eight years, only about 4% of the 328 people who received services went on to commit a violent crime, and fewer than 2% had another violent injury.

In the second quarter of the year, AIM met with two people injured in community violence — one who had been stabbed and one whom a driver had hit intentionally – and one person with a self-inflicted bullet wound, according to a report it filed as part of a grant from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Data from the summer months isn’t yet available.

Colorado hasn’t set up the grants to prove that a particular group’s efforts averted a certain number of injuries or deaths, but models that worked in other major cities should be helpful in the Denver area, said Dr. Ned Calonge, the state health department’s chief medical officer.

Studies from other cities have estimated that violence-interrupting efforts led to about 18% to 56% fewer killings, depending on the neighborhood.

About 90% of the funding for the violence-prevention grants comes from the federal government, so the state may have to get creative to continue them, Calonge said. No single strategy will solve a problem as complex as gun violence, but combining approaches such as credible messenger meetings with interventions like offering trigger locks to parents will lead to progress, he said.

“Making headway is something that’s going to take a lot of time,” he said. “I think we’re making starts in the right direction.”

Repeated violent injuries are common enough that doctors can think of trauma as a “chronic disease,” said Dr. Shevie Kassai, a trauma surgeon at HCA HealthOne Aurora, formerly known as Medical Center of Aurora. The hospital started working with AIM to connect survivors of shootings and stabbings to behavioral health treatment and other resources, in the hope that they won’t be back, she said.

Kassai estimated between half and 60% of her patients who survive “penetrating injuries” — mainly wounds from shootings or stabbings — return with similar injuries. Statewide, only about 2% of people hospitalized with a bullet or knife wound from 2020 to 2024 had a similar injury before, according to the state’s trauma registry. It may have missed people with less-severe injuries, though, because the registry only includes hospitals that can treat more severe trauma.

“All we can do is give patients, give all human beings, the tools to take care of themselves the best they can,” she said.

The only way that any of the efforts work is if people in the community know that someone truly cares about them and is in it for the long haul, said Randall Elliott, a violence intervention specialist who helps calm situations and connect victims and bystanders to mental health support after a shooting.

Services like free lunches and clothing distribution are a vital part of making young people feel they can seek help before a situation escalates, he said.

“It just shows that we’re a positive force in our community and we’re in tune with our community,” he said. “Trust is a rare and priceless jewel.”

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The hospital, in Aurora, prioritized emergencies and urgent cases during the shortfall, but is starting to return to a more-normal volume of pre-scheduled procedures, said Dan Weaver, spokesman for UCHealth, which owns the hospital.

He didn’t specify how many people had to wait for non-emergency procedures, but said some already have new surgery dates scheduled.

“We will be working as quickly as possible to reschedule all elective surgeries and procedures that had been postponed,” he said in a statement. “We sincerely apologize to our patients and thank them for their understanding as we return to normal operations.”

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment confirmed it was investigating a complaint involving the University of Colorado Hospital this week, but declined to say whether it had anything to do with instrument sterilization. Once the investigation is over, the state health department will post the results on its website.

Sterilizing surgical instruments is a complex process, and technicians must undergo training to ensure they don’t miss a step and leave germs on equipment that will go into a patient’s body. The state cited 16 hospitals for sterilization problems from 2019 to May 2024. In most cases, staff made mistakes that could have contaminated instruments.

The state hasn’t released any information suggesting the University of Colorado Hospital wasn’t following proper sterilization procedures.

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People could have encountered the highly contagious virus at the following locations:

• Taylor Park Trading Post, 23044 County Road 742, Almont, between 4 and 7 p.m. July 12. Symptoms could develop through Aug. 2.
• Gunnison Valley Health Hospital, 711 N. Taylor St., Gunnison, between 3 p.m. July 16 and 10 a.m. July 17. Symptoms could develop through Aug. 8.

Anyone who visited either of those two locations within the exposure windows should watch for symptoms, and seek medical help if they develop. Calling ahead to the clinic or emergency room the person plans to visit can help prevent further exposures.

Measles symptoms include fever, cough, a runny nose, red eyes and a rash that typically starts on the face. The rash usually appears about four days after a person becomes contagious.

Two doses of the measles vaccine reduce the odds of getting the virus by about 97%. Receiving the vaccine within three days of an exposure can also lower the chances of getting sick, though not by as much as getting vaccinated well in advance.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment didn’t release any information about the visitor.

Colorado has recorded 16 cases of measles so far this year. Four people needed hospital care, but none have died. Most were people who picked up the virus while traveling overseas, or were on a flight with someone who was contagious.

In a typical year, the state has two or fewer cases.

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The largest factor behind the anticipated surge in premiums is that higher federal subsidies put in place during the pandemic will expire Dec. 31, said Adam Fox, deputy director of the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative.

About 321,000 people received subsidies to buy insurance on Colorado’s marketplace last year.

When those subsidies end, customers will have to pay more for their health coverage, and insurance companies are betting that healthier people will balk, leaving a group that’s sicker on average and includes fewer people to spread out the cost of care, he said.

People who receive health coverage through their employers are in separate pools, so the end of the subsidies won’t affect them directly. Most plans increase their premiums every year to cover rising costs of health care and medications.

Republicans, who control both houses of Congress, didn’t include an extension of the subsidies in their recently passed bill to make other tax cuts permanent, which also touched on health insurance, food assistance, green energy and border security.

Colorado’s Democratic members of Congress have said they’ll push for a separate bill to extend the enhanced subsidies, but House and Senate leadership haven’t shown interest in taking one up.

The Colorado Division of Insurance reported that companies selling on the individual marketplace submitted requests to increase their rates by an average of 28.4% next year, with larger increases on the Eastern Plains and Western Slope.

That put Colorado at the higher end for potential increases, compared to other states that have released data. A sample of 105 insurers from 19 other states found proposed increases ranging from less than 5% to more than 30%, according to KFF, a nonprofit that studies health care markets.

How much of that increase people have to shoulder will depend on their incomes. The enhanced subsidies lowered the share of income that a household had to pay toward insurance coverage, to the point that people just above the cutoff to be eligible for Medicaid paid nothing. That will change in January.

Higher earners also will take a hit. When the Affordable Care Act passed, no one earning more than four times the federal poverty line would receive any subsidies. The enhanced subsidies meant that a family of four earning more than $128,600, the cutoff for this year, could receive tax credits to bring their insurance costs down to no more than 8.5% of their incomes.

If Congress acted this summer to extend the enhanced subsidies, the state would work with insurers to adjust their premiums and lower costs for consumers, said Katie O’Donnell, director of communications and public engagement for the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies, which includes the Division of Insurance.

The state finalizes insurance rates in October and open enrollment begins Nov. 1, giving lawmakers a relatively narrow window to make changes.

Even if the enhanced subsidies continued, premiums would still go up, though the increase would be closer to the 5% to 10% Colorado has seen in recent years, Fox said. Smaller changes made by the Trump administration have increased uncertainty for insurance companies, though not nearly as drastically as losing the higher subsidies, he said.

“Insurance markets hate uncertainty, and there are a lot of changes happening to the individual market,” he said.

Colorado also will have less money available to limit rate increases through its reinsurance program next year, Fox said.

Reinsurance backstops insurance companies, so they don’t pay as much for sick customers who need expensive care. That allows them to keep premiums lower, and means the federal government doesn’t have to pay out as much in tax credits to subsidize consumers. The federal government then gives that money back to the states that have reinsurance programs, allowing them to keep lowering premiums.

With the enhanced subsidies gone, the federal government won’t be on the hook for as much money, meaning the state will have a smaller pot of funds to limit increases, Fox said.

The rate increases that companies selling on the individual market in Colorado requested are:

• Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Colorado: 15.3%
• SelectHealth: 19.3%
• Denver Health: 23.4%
• Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company: 29.4%
• Anthem (HMO CO Inc.): 33.6%
• Rocky Mountain HMO (United Healthcare): 36.4%

Older people and those who live in rural areas will see larger increases in premiums on the individual marketplace, though the remaining subsidies will blunt some of the impact.

The cost to insure a 21-year-old in Denver would rise by $1,057 a year, while the increase would be $5,186 a year for a 60-year-old on the Western Slope, according to the Division of Insurance.

The average increases by region would be:

• Colorado Springs: 24.2%
• Denver: 25.4%
• Boulder: 26.7%
• Greeley: 29.0%
• Fort Collins: 29.4%
• Pueblo: 30.4%
• Eastern Plains: 33.4%
• Grand Junction: 38.4%
• Western Slope: 38.8%

The Division of Insurance estimated 100,000 people might lose coverage, and an unknown number could switch to an option with lower monthly premiums but higher out-of-pocket costs if they get sick. Either move could leave individuals with larger medical bills and health care providers with greater uncompensated care costs.

Insurance companies don’t always get the increases they ask for, but typically the requested rates are close to the approved ones, Fox said.

The division examines the insurers’ estimates of how much it will likely cost them to cover customers in the coming year, to ensure they collect enough premiums to remain financially stable, but don’t make excessive profits.

Given all of the changes coming this year, the division will have a tougher time making the case that insurers don’t need significant increases, he said.

“The upheaval is hard to combat,” he said.

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Updated 10:20 a.m. July 22, 2025: This story has been updated to correct figures for premiums that a 21-year-old and 60-year-old would pay. Those are annual costs.

An Englewood medical spa is recalling more than 1,500 injections of weight-loss drugs and vitamin cocktails after an inspection found its employees handled the drugs in a way that could introduce contamination.

Thrive Health Solutions, which offers hormone therapy and weight-loss drugs, among other injectable medications, voluntarily recalled the following products:

• • 854 syringes of tirzepatide, which sells under the brand names Zepbound and Mounjaro
  • 458 syringes of tirzepatide and vitamin B12
  • 196 syringes of semaglutide, which sells under the brand names Ozempic and Wegovy
  • 102 syringes of LX Bioboost Plus, which contains vitamins and other ingredients, including a small amount of the topical anesthetic lidocaine
  • 64 syringes of LL Boost, which contains vitamin B12, amino acids and other ingredients
  • 60 syringes of CJC-1295, which stimulates the release of growth hormone
  • 32 syringes of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, a substance the body uses to process energy
  • 28 syringes of semaglutide and vitamin B12
  • Five syringes of methylcobalamin, a form of vitamin B12

An inspection by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in late March and early April found employees mixed doses of drugs in a room that doubled as an office and had surfaces that would be difficult to keep sterile. At least one person didn’t wear full personal protective equipment to prevent contamination of the drugs.

The FDA hasn’t released any reports of infections or other harm to patients.

A person answering the phone at Thrive declined to comment and told a reporter “to get your facts straight, first and foremost,” but hung up when asked what was wrong with the premise of an article about the facility’s recalls.

Thrive also faces a lawsuit from drugmaker Eli Lilly for allegedly making false claims about FDA approval when selling a compounded version of tirzepatide, a diabetes and weight-loss drug. Eli Lilly sells tirzepatide under the brand names Zepbound and Mounjaro.

Compounding pharmacies generally create custom medications for patients’ specific needs, but can also sell versions of an existing drug during an FDA-declared shortage. The FDA doesn’t regulate compounding pharmacies’ products or guarantee they are safe and effective.

A post on Thrive’s website, dated April 5, said the company could no longer provide compounded tirzepatide or semaglutide, because the FDA had found the original drugs were no longer in a shortage. The company said that it could continue to sell compounded versions by mixing them with other, unspecified ingredients to suit customers’ needs.

Adding easily available ingredients, such as vitamin B12, wouldn’t make compounded versions of weight-loss drugs legal now that the shortage is over, according to GoodRx. A patient must have a medical need that they can’t meet with existing FDA-approved drugs for a compounding pharmacy to be justified in a custom formulation.

The formulations Thrive was selling were legal at the time of the inspection.

The FDA reported 1,000 adverse events related to compounded tirzepatide and semaglutide, but didn’t specify how many were serious. The agency doesn’t deeply investigate all adverse events, so an unknown number could be coincidences or caused by another factor, such as the patient taking a larger-than-prescribed dose.

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About 32% of people who responded to the annual Pulse poll, commissioned by the Colorado Health Foundation, said government and politics were the biggest challenge facing the state.

That was more than twice the share who named the general cost of living or inflation (13%), and three times the share who worried most about housing affordability (10%).

Last year, respondents listed the cost of living as the biggest challenge, followed by the cost of housing, government and politics, immigration and homelessness.

The poll doesn’t suggest that people felt better about pocketbook issues, however.

More than 80% said the general cost of living and the cost of housing were “extremely serious” or “very serious” problems in Colorado. About three-quarters said the same about the cost of health care and homelessness. The share of people rating those problems as extremely or very serious was similar to last year.

The increasing concern about politics may reflect a sense that people in power aren’t doing enough to fix the state’s biggest problems, said Katie Peshek, senior communications officer for the Colorado Health Foundation.

This year’s poll, conducted in April and May, was the first to find that government was the top concern since they started surveying Coloradans in 2020.

“Many of these things, I think people are feeling frustrated,” she said. “Government and politics has always been there (on the list of concerns), but midway in the pack.”

When asked for more detail, about three in five of those who named government and politics as the state’s biggest challenge were critical of Republicans, close to three in 10 were critical of Democrats and one in eight said they were worried about polarization in general, or some other aspect of government.

In previous years, most of the people who listed government and politics as the biggest problem were conservatives upset with the legislature and the Polis administration, said Lori Weigel, principal of New Bridge Strategy, which works with Republicans.

This year, an increasing share of liberals who don’t like the Trump administration’s actions listed politics as the top challenge, she said. The foundation contracted with one firm aligned with each of the two major parties.

“I think that is what boosted those concerns,” she said.

Respondents weren’t optimistic about their ability to solve problems through public engagement.

When asked to rank seven ways of participating based on how effective they would be, only one came out above the midway point: volunteering with organizations working on causes they cared about, which averaged 4.7 on a scale of one to seven. Expressing opinions on social media landed at the bottom, with an average score of 3.1. Voting wasn’t on the list of actions, because not all of the respondents are registered, Weigel said.

The perceived lack of agency isn’t surprising, Weigel said. The feeling that politicians are more interested in what donors or special interest groups want than in ordinary voters isn’t new, though it has grown in recent years, she said.

“Trust in government and trust in political institutions has eroded over time,” she said.

Part of the reason people feel they can’t make a difference is that the problems are genuinely big and complex, Peshek said. But polarization is another factor, since grassroots groups report more successful engagement on local, relatively nonpartisan issues, she said.

“We need to find new and innovative ways to make people feel closer to government and feel their voices are heard,” she said. “We must find a way for parties to work together.”

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The collaborative care model involves mental health professionals working in primary care clinics, with psychiatrists available to consult about patients’ needs, possibly via telehealth.

The federal government allows Medicaid to pay for the time the mental health professional spends assessing and tracking each patient’s progress, as well as consulting with the psychiatrist, but leaves it up to each state to decide whether its program will do so. Generally, insurance pays for treatment rendered to patients, but not the time spent coordinating it.

On July 1, Colorado became the 36th state to start allowing Medicaid to cover that supportive work, according to Path Forward, a nonprofit advocating for the collaborative care model. The Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing estimated it will cost the state’s general fund about $368,000 in the first year, with about $1.1 million in federal matching funds.

The ability to bill Medicaid for that work will make it more sustainable for primary care practices to bring at least some mental health services in-house, said Dr. Shen Nagel, with Pediatrics West in Wheat Ridge. The practice employs one mental health professional, with grants helping to pay for her work coordinating care.

Typically, primary care providers had to give their patients a list of mental health professionals in the community and hope they followed through and found the care they needed, Nagel said. The on-staff professional at Pediatrics West can see patients with relatively routine needs now, but should be able to help those who need a bit more support once they move to the model where a psychiatrist acts as a consultant, he said.

The model won’t eliminate the need for referrals, but will allow some kids to get their mental health care in a place where they already feel comfortable, Nagel said.

“We could probably fill the schedules of five to six behavioral health providers, easily,” he said.

The collaborative care model hasn’t penetrated deeply in Colorado. About 500 people received care under the model paid for by commercial insurance in 2023, and 700 received it through Medicare in 2022, which was the most recent year with data, according to a report by the consulting company Milliman.

Nationwide, about 125,000 people received collaborative care paid for by private insurance, and about 73,000 had it covered by Medicare or Medicaid. The two groups could overlap somewhat if people moved between insurance types.

Generally, studies found that patients with depression who received collaborative care were more likely to report improved symptoms than those who only received typical primary care. One exception found similar levels of improvement in both groups, perhaps reflecting differences in what their primary care providers could offer.

Clinics reported widely varying rates of improvement, with some saying about one-third of their patients saw lessening of their depression symptoms, while a location in Texas reported four out of five patients’ depression got at least partially better.

The mental health provider community was watching closely to see whether the state would allow Medicaid billing for coordination, since it faces a significant budget gap next year, said Dr. K. Ron-Li Liaw, who has been chief of mental health at Children’s Hospital Colorado since 2022.

Most providers using the collaborative care model work with adult patients, but Colorado has an opportunity to show that it can benefit the roughly 20% of pediatric patients who have behavioral health needs, she said. A psychiatrist at Children’s will work with six practices, including Pediatrics West, to figure out how to make the model work for kids.

“We’ve been waiting in Colorado for this day as long as I’ve been here,” she said.

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H.R. 1, the GOP-backed tax-and-spending law previously known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, prohibits Medicaid payments for one year to nonprofit organizations that provide abortions and also received at least $800,000 in federal funding in 2023.

The sweeping law also extends President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, increases spending on border security and reduces funding for Medicaid and food assistance.

Congress prohibits agencies from using federal money to pay for abortions, unless the mother’s life is at risk or the pregnancy results from rape or incest. But federal money usually can pay for other types of care, such as testing for sexually transmitted diseases and cancer screening, at clinics that also perform abortions.

The tax law doesn’t name Planned Parenthood, but, so far, the only other organization that reports being affected is a group of health centers in Maine. Jack Teter, vice president of government affairs for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, said he believes its affiliates are the only health centers blocked from seeing Medicaid patients in Colorado.

Planned Parenthood clinics in Colorado have stopped seeing patients covered by Medicaid and referred them to other providers, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains CEO Adrienne Mansanares said. State law doesn’t allow providers to take cash payments from people covered by Medicaid, so Planned Parenthood has no choice but to cancel their appointments, she said.

A federal judge in Massachusetts put the provision in the tax law on hold for two weeks, but the legal landscape is too unsettled to schedule patients covered by Medicaid, Mansanares said. They’ve canceled “hundreds” of appointments since Trump signed the bill on July 4, she said.

“A 14-day injunction that could be overruled tomorrow or tonight isn’t helpful operationally,” she said Thursday.

About 5,000 people covered by Medicaid in Colorado have one of Planned Parenthood’s locations designated as their primary care provider, said Marc Williams, spokesman for the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing.

The state is working to connect those people with other providers, he said.

Between 11,000 and 14,000 Medicaid members receive care from Planned Parenthood at least once in a typical year, either in a clinic or via telehealth, Williams said. Last year, people in 62 of the state’s 64 counties used Planned Parenthood, he said.

A transgender Medicaid patient who had an annual check-up scheduled at Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs this week said he was frustrated to learn he’d have to find a new provider. He spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve his privacy because not everyone knows he is transgender.

Planned Parenthood is a popular place for transgender patients because the doctors are familiar with their needs and the clinics have security, which protects them from violence, the patient said. But having to find a new provider is difficult for anyone covered by Medicaid because so many doctors don’t accept it, he said.

“It’s just frustrating to constantly lose appointments, doctors, options,” he said.

Colorado clinics expect to stay open

Planned Parenthood has 11 clinics in Colorado, including in two Denver neighborhoods, Arvada, Aurora, Boulder, Colorado Springs, Cortez, Fort Collins, Glenwood Springs, Greeley and Salida.

Most of those clinics have at least one facility offering federally funded sexual health services to low-income people nearby, but residents of Cortez, Glenwood Springs and Salida would have to drive at least 30 miles, according to ReproductiveHealthServices.gov.

Primary care providers can also provide services such as prescribing birth control and screening for cervical cancer.

States and regions will vary in how well they can absorb patients who previously sought sexual health care and cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood, said Alina Salganicoff, senior director of the women’s health program at KFF, a nonprofit that studies the health care system.

Federally qualified health centers can offer those services to patients on Medicaid, as can state and local health departments, but those facilities may not be nearby for people who used to go to Planned Parenthood, she said.

Dr. Rebecca Cohen, an obstetrician who treats high-risk patients in the Denver area, said on a panel with Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper on Wednesday that Medicaid patients may have to wait longer for care as those who sought treatment at Planned Parenthood increase demand on other providers in their communities.

“We don’t know the full scope of it. We know that it is not good,” she said.

Colorado voters allowed state funding for Medicaid recipients’ abortions when they passed Amendment 79 last year, but Planned Parenthood still can’t provide that care to anyone enrolled in Medicaid because of the tax law’s wording, Mansanares said.

Planned Parenthood affiliates in other regions have expressed concerns about cutting services or closing clinics without the ability to bill Medicaid, but Colorado’s tradition of donations to support abortion and other sexual health care makes that a less likely concern, Mansanares said.

If anything, Planned Parenthood’s Colorado clinics may need to keep adding providers and hours to accommodate patients driving from out-of-state for gender-affirming care or abortions, she said.

“What this law does is harm Medicaid patients,” she said.

Efforts to restrict public funding

Protesters outside of the Planned Parenthood clinic in Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood on Thursday said they didn’t expect much impact from cutting off Medicaid funding for non-abortion services. People don’t like their tax dollars going to an abortion provider, but Planned Parenthood’s wealthy donors won’t let it go under, said Terry Sullivan, of Denver.

“I doubt seriously that Planned Parenthood is going to run out of funds any time soon,” he said.

Ultimately, Planned Parenthood won’t stop providing abortions unless the procedure is fully banned, said Susan Sutherland of Thornton, who carried a sign with a picture of a fetus.

The new law is only the latest effort to restrict public funding to Planned Parenthood.

A Supreme Court ruling in late June effectively allowed states to cut the organization, or other providers, out of their Medicaid programs. The court determined, in a 6-3 decision, that Medicaid recipients can’t sue their states for denying them their choice of providers.

In March, the Trump administration announced it would withhold Title X funding, which covers contraception and family planning services other than abortion for low-income people, from 16 providers, nine of which were Planned Parenthood affiliates. The administration said it was investigating whether any of the providers had used the money for efforts related to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Colorado’s Planned Parenthood locations don’t participate in Title X.

Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat representing Denver in Congress, said Thursday that she doesn’t think most Republicans truly want to take away access to cancer screenings and other routine health care. She said she believes the law unconstitutionally singles out Planned Parenthood, but will continue working in Congress to change it while the lawsuit plays out.

“You have a lot of friends in Washington now, and we’re going to fight to get this fixed,” she said during a visit to the Park Hill clinic Thursday.

Given the current composition of the Supreme Court, Mansanares said she isn’t optimistic about the lawsuit’s chances, regardless of the injunction. The current justices overturned the nationwide right to an abortion with the Dobbs v. Jackson decision in 2022.

“Our assumption is that it will be taken up, and we’ll be back where we were July 4,” she said.

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