Denver, CO
Ballot Issue 2Q: A Denver sales tax increase that could provide a lifeline for Denver Health
Denver voters this year will decide whether to toss a financial lifeline to the city’s safety net hospital and health system, Denver Health.
The system serves a disproportionately low-income population both in its hospital and through a network of community and school-based clinics. But it has been struggling with higher amounts of what is known as uncompensated care — care that a hospital provides but does not receive payment for. That has placed the hospital in a more precarious financial position.
Ballot Issue 2Q, which appears only on the ballots of voters in Denver, would raise the city’s sales tax rate by 0.34% — 3.4 cents on a $10 purchase — to provide funding for Denver Health. It is estimated to raise $70 million a year to start.
Here’s what else you need to know about Ballot Issue 2Q.
Why does Denver Health need the money?
For decades, the annual balance sheets for Denver Health have looked like a child’s drawing of the Rocky Mountains.
Up, down, up, down through jagged peaks and steep valleys.
“Our finances over multiple years have been a little like a roller coaster, one year is OK, another year’s bad,” Denver Health CEO Donna Lynne said.
But then came the COVID-19 pandemic. Emergency funding in 2020 pushed the hospital’s profit margin from operations to record heights. But in 2022, inflation, higher staffing costs and fundamental shifts in the insurance market smushed Denver Health’s margins into the deepest hole in over two decades.
The hospital lost around $32 million on operations in 2022. It turned a roughly $9 million profit in 2023, but one-time boosts from the state legislature and Kaiser Permanente contributed to that. This year, Denver Health expects to lose about $8.5 million, and as of June, the hospital had just a little over two months’ worth of cash-on-hand. (Best-practice standards usually call for around six months or more.)
If passed, Ballot Issue 2Q would help Denver Health build up a cushion. But it still wouldn’t be enough to wipe out one of the hospital’s biggest reasons for struggling — the amount of care it provides but doesn’t get paid for as a safety net hospital.
Also known as uncompensated care, the figure is estimated to hit $155 million for 2024, Lynne said, compared with $60 million in 2020.
Why is uncompensated care increasing?
About half of what Denver Health counts as uncompensated care is tied to Medicare and Medicaid patients — both programs pay less than what it costs Denver Health to provide care, so the hospital includes the shortfall in its total for uncompensated care.
More than two-thirds of Denver Health’s patients are covered by Medicare or Medicaid. In talking about how this impacts the hospital’s finances, Lynne specifically mentioned Medicaid payment rates, which she said are increasing by only 2% next year.
“That’s not consistent with inflation; it’s certainly not consistent with medical inflation,” Lynne said. “And it’s not what we can pay our employees in terms of their salary because other systems are able to pay much more.”
The other half of Denver Health’s uncompensated care is tied to uninsured patients.
Lynne said the hospital has been seeing more uninsured patients since the state began doing eligibility renewals for members. During the pandemic, federal rules prohibited state Medicaid programs from disenrolling anyone, leading to huge numbers of people on Colorado’s Medicaid rolls. But that changed when the federal COVID-19 public health emergency expired and states again began doing annual checks to see if Medicaid members still qualified to be enrolled.
The process — known as “the unwind” — has led to hundreds of thousands of people in Colorado dropping from Medicaid coverage. Many of those may have been eligible to transition to health insurance offered through their work, or they may have been able to buy coverage on their own. But a certain, as-yet-unknown number likely remained uninsured, leading to higher rates of uninsured patients at Denver Health and other safety net medical and mental health care providers.
Lynne said the elimination of the tax penalty for not having insurance under the Affordable Care Act may have some role in the rising number of uninsured people. Broad changes in the economy — more gig workers, for example, or more people working at jobs that either don’t offer insurance or do but the insurance is unaffordable — may also contribute to the issue.
“The wages are so low, or the workers are working part-time, that being able to buy health insurance from their employer or in the private market is just untenable,” she said.
These circumstances — more uninsured patients and rising losses from treating Medicare and Medicaid patients — are something being felt across the health care system. But unlike other hospitals, Denver Health doesn’t have a big pool of privately insured patients it can charge more to in order to offset those losses.
Lynne said about 14% of the hospital’s patients are privately insured. For other health systems in the Denver metro area, that percentage is typically closer to 30%.
On top of that, Lynne said it is common for medical providers to refer uninsured patients to Denver Health for follow-up care, meaning the hospital, while proud of its commitment to treating anyone and everyone, sits at the bottom of a large funnel of patients it won’t get paid to treat — and not just from Denver. Lynne said the hospital sees patients from 62 of Colorado’s 64 counties.
“We provide care across the state, and it’s one of my arguments with the state as to why they ought to support us financially,” Lynne said.
Are migrants to blame for Denver Health’s struggles?
The cost of caring for newly arrived immigrants at Denver Health has received a lot of attention. Much of that care is uncompensated, though some of it could be covered by emergency Medicaid or other programs.
But Lynne said the attention the issue has received is disproportionate to the impact on Denver Health’s finances.
Lynne said uncompensated care for newcomers accounts for about $10 million of this year’s $155 million in uncompensated care. Denver Health saw about 1.3 million total patient visits in 2023. Newcomers accounted for about 20,000 of those, or about 1.5%.
What will Denver Health do if the measure doesn’t pass?
If the measure fails, Lynne said Denver Health will look at making cuts to its services, including the main hospital, but also a number of community and school-based clinics, focused especially on underserved neighborhoods and communities in Denver.
The health system has also launched a housing initiative — 34 apartments available on a 90-day basis — to provide people who are homeless with a place to live while seeking treatment and stability.
“Thirty-four is not a lot, but it does help and it gets people into a place where they can perhaps be productive,” Lynne said. “No one gives us money for that. We are doing it because it’s the right thing to do.”
Lynne said these types of programs may not be sustainable without more funding. The hospital has also historically delayed maintenance or been slow to raise employee pay.
But Lynne said that needs to stop. If the extra funding from Ballot Issue 2Q doesn’t come through, Lynne said she would prefer to cut some services and close some locations — she didn’t offer specifics — than to limp along.
“If it doesn’t pass, we will shrink services. We will cut services,” Lynne said. “We’ll have to get smaller to get better.”
“I’d rather be a little smaller and pay our employees what they deserve. … I would rather be smaller and better than do what we do now.”
Who is supporting or opposing the measure?
One committee, called Healing Denver, has been established to support the measure. Lynne and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston spoke at the committee’s launch event earlier this year.
So far, Healing Denver has raised nearly $1.9 million, according to city records. An organization called Heart of Denver, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit established to educate the public about Denver Health, has contributed about $258,000. Jacque Montgomery, a spokeswoman for Denver Health, said the organization is independent from Denver Health, has its own board and receives no funding from the hospital.
Other large donors include a trust connected to former DaVita CEO Kent Thiry and his wife; an arm of Gary Community Ventures; the health care advocacy organization Healthier Colorado; and the human services organization Servicios de La Raza. Lynne is also one of the campaign’s top contributors, having given $80,000 to Healing Denver.
No committees have registered with the city in opposition to the measure. In various meetings and forums, criticism of the ballot measure has focused on the rising number of property-tax increases being put upon voters, as well as statements that the city’s approach to immigration is unsustainable.
The Thiry-O’Leary Foundation, which is run by the family of Kent Thiry and his wife, Denise O’Leary, is a financial supporter of The Colorado Sun, but has no say in editorial decisions.
DENVER — Denver Mayor Mike Johnston is launching a $100 million plan to boost the local economy and support 10,000 jobs over the next three years.
Johnston announced the four-part program Thursday morning, flanked by business leaders while praising downtown businesses like brunch eatery Snooze.
▶️ WATCH: Denver7’s Alex Dowd reports on the plan
Denver mayor promises to create 10K jobs in next 3 years
Snooze Co-Founder Adam Schlegel said his business benefited from a similar program when U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper was mayor in the early 2000s.
“The city really was the one that stepped up,” Schlegel said. “We wouldn’t have started if it wouldn’t have been for the economic development office. We ended up getting an incentive from the city to open up, particularly in this space [downtown]. It was a fiscal incentive to do it, in addition to coaching.”
Both of those are offered in the new four-part Denver Jobs Agenda. With funding from the Denver Downtown Development Authority and the Office of Economic Development and Opportunity, Johnston aims to develop start-ups in the city, grow existing businesses and draw in new companies while working to advance the Denver-area workforce across industries.
At the end of the last fiscal quarter, Denver’s unemployment rate hovered around 3.6% — under the national rate of 4.2% — according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, while office vacancy sits just under 40%, according to commercial real estate broker CBRE.
Johnston and other speakers made multiple references to more jobs bringing more people downtown.
“Denver has so many things going for it, so it will come back,” Schlegel said. “It’s not coming back as fast as I want, or as much as anyone will, but will it have a long-term future? 100%. It’s things like this, though, that I think give us a lot of hope that it can happen sooner than waiting it out.”
▶️ Watch the full press conference
Press conference: Denver mayor announces Denver Jobs Agenda
Chris Berthiaume, the city’s director of workforce industry initiatives, says the three workforce development centers across Denver serve around 20,000 people each year. He’s confident this new initiative will help more of those visitors find employment.
“We want to focus on things like aerospace, cybersecurity, green construction,” Berthiaume said. “This new initiative really just tightens the focus on sectors that we know are growing. Colorado is home to a huge aerospace culture. Quantum technology is emerging and coming. Green workforce are jobs that we know drive around Denver. Construction is everywhere. We need to make sure we have a skilled workforce that’s ready to take on those jobs.”
While also finding employers to hire them and stay within the community for the long haul.
“I think the reason businesses work — certainly restaurants work — is that you are integral to the community specifically where you are,” Schlegel said. “There are so many people in our community that really believe in Denver and want to see what it can be, and so it will get there.”
It’s well on the way. Denver’s Economic Development Corporation says they’re working with 52 active prospects that could bring more than 12,000 jobs to the area.
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Denver, CO
Victor Marx wins GOP primary for Colorado governor, defeating veteran lawmaker after unorthodox campaign
Victor Marx, a first-time candidate and nonprofit leader with a controversial personal history that’s drawn intense scrutiny, has edged out his more establishment opponent and will be Colorado Republicans’ gubernatorial nominee in November.
The Associated Press called the race for Marx late Thursday afternoon, nearly nine days after polls closed. He led the runner-up, state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer, 39.9% to 39.4%, with 99% of ballots counted, according to the AP.
Marx had taken his first narrow lead over Kirkmeyer the day after the June 30 primary, and though the race remained close, he never lost the advantage. While outstanding deficient and overseas ballots helped delay a final call on the race, those votes only served to expand Marx’s margin. He led by 2,524 votes at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, out of about 522,000 ballots cast.
State Rep. Scott Bottoms was a distant third, with 20.8% of the vote.
A veteran lawmaker and former Weld County commissioner, Kirkmeyer had jumped to an early advantage on the strength of early ballot returns. But as votes returned on Election Day began to filter in, her lead thinned and collapsed. Within 48 hours of polls closing, and with few ballots left to count in Kirkmeyer’s Front Range strongholds, her path to retake the lead had all but vanished.
Marx will next face Democratic Attorney General Phil Weiser in November. No Republican has been elected to the governor’s office in more than 20 years. Four months out, Weiser appears to be heavily favored to continue Democrats’ electoral dominance.
In an email to supporters after the race was called, Marx said he was humbled to be the nominee and that the victory was “the starting line.”
“My team and I have put together this special message that I want every Coloradan to hear — Republicans, independents, unaffiliated voters, and Democrats who are open to a better way,” he said. “Because what we’re building now is bigger than a primary victory.”
In a video, he appealed to Coloradans who are frustrated with the status quo and don’t think things can change — citing his victory as proof they can.
“Now Phil Weiser, he’s a smart fella — but he represents the current system, because he is part of it,” Marx said. “And that current system has made Colorado more expensive, less safe and harder for regular families to trust government.”
In a separate statement, Kirkmeyer said she was proud of the race that she had run and the “clear vision” she had laid out for the Republican Party here.
“While we came up short in what appears to be the closest Republican gubernatorial primary in Colorado history, I’m grateful for every voter who placed their trust in us,” she wrote.
Echoing the pledge she’d made before Election Day, she pointedly did not endorse Marx. She said only that she hoped voters “choose the path that is best for Colorado” in November.
Kirkmeyer also threw a final jab at Marx, who declined in late May to tell 9News how many people he’d killed as an adult.
Kirkmeyer wrote that, “for the record, I still haven’t killed anyone.”
First-time candidate shrugged off questions
Marx’s primary win is a remarkable result for the embattled Colorado GOP and for Marx, a former Marine, martial arts instructor and nonprofit leader whose extensive and much-scrutinized personal history had drawn national headlines. It’s also attracted sharp criticism from other Republicans.
In his video, Marx appealed to Republican primary voters, saying there was room in his campaign for those who supported his opponents.
Marx had entered the fray last fall with no political profile and no experience as a political candidate. But by the time voters began receiving ballots last month, he’d ridden an atypical — if thoroughly modern — campaign to fundraising dominance and front-runner status.
Kirkmeyer’s support largely flowed from northern Front Range counties, nudging her ahead initially. But Marx picked up bigger margins among Election Day voters — meaning those more conservative voters skeptical of mail-in balloting.
He also won ruby-red El Paso County while racking up smaller wins in rural counties and grabbing enough in the Front Range to edge Kirkmeyer.
Map: Where did the votes come from in the Colorado primary races for governor?
In a pitch reminiscent of President Donald Trump, the arch-dealmaker, Marx has cast himself as a solutions-focused negotiator disinterested in partisan squabbles. In 2003, he founded All Things Possible Ministries, a Christian nonprofit that has provided stuffed animals and trauma support to people. It has also done work in conflict areas in Syria and Iraq, where Marx primarily worked away from the front lines as a funder and facilitator.
By 2024, the nonprofit’s annual revenue had surpassed $7.5 million, and Marx has said the group — from which he has resigned — now primarily works to help law enforcement.
Despite his outsider status, Marx was considered the likely winner in the weeks before Election Day. His narrow victory, then, came as something of a surprise, and, on election night, he speculated that Bottoms — a conservative pastor from Colorado Springs — had pulled votes from him. In El Paso County, Bottoms earned more than 20,000 votes, or 24% of the county’s Republican total.
Though Marx out-raised and out-spent both Kirkmeyer and Bottoms, it was Kirkmeyer who had been perceived as the expected nominee when she entered the race last year. Marx had never run for office before, and the stories he’s told about his life — that he’d killed a man at age 7, been involved in “high-risk humanitarian” operations across the globe and could free people from demonic possession — drew intense scrutiny and national punchlines.
But he repeatedly shrugged off questions about his background and said he stood by all that he had said and written.
Through his personality-heavy, direct-to-voter campaign, he encouraged Colorado Republicans to shrug it off, too. He spent heavily on direct mailers, which provided a boost to both his fundraising and name recognition.
Marx eschewed policy discussions and skipped nearly every debate. When he did participate in one, he spent part of the event leaning on the lectern, with his dog at his feet. Rather than deliver a closing statement, he prayed.
Campaigning his own way
Though he leaned into his outsider status, the aw-shucks appeal belied a careful campaign shaped by Marx’s emergence from a political environment forged by Trump: He skipped one debate after a moderator pressed him about his background, and he held a rally instead; his campaign later highlighted how many more people attended the rally than the debate.
His media operation was led by a former Turning Points USA staffer, and his campaign touted its social media posts’ views at Marx’s watch party last week. He was comfortable as a podcast guest, regularly released videos of himself and repeatedly assured voters that he was no politician.
Though Marx had little backing — or trust — from institutional Republican forces, the PAC that supported his campaign was established by a former senior official from Gov. Bill Owens’ administration. Marx also was endorsed by U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, the most nationally visible Colorado Republican.
His approach proved to be enough for Colorado Republicans to back him. But his next task will be far harder.
In November, he will face a surging Weiser, who last week dismantled U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet on his way to the Democratic nomination. Weiser proved an adept fundraiser and campaigner with statewide appeal, and he will look to lead a restless Democratic base that elected progressive candidates up and down the ballot.
In a statement Thursday, Weiser said Marx’s “views and style are far out of step with Coloradans, and his nomination for governor is a threat to our state’s values and our future.”
Republicans’ last statewide win was in a University of Colorado at-large regent’s race in 2016. The state GOP has had four elected party chairs since the last Republican gubernatorial bid in 2022, which ended with a culture war-focused Heidi Ganahl — who had won that at-large regent seat — losing by nearly 20 percentage points to Gov. Jared Polis.
Simultaneously, Marx may also have to contend with an independent candidacy from Greg Lopez, a former Republican congressman and gubernatorial candidate who is gathering signatures to make the fall ballot.
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If you use Santa Fe Drive as a part of your daily commute, you will notice full closures this weekend on a popular section, from Florida Avenue to Evans Avenue, for the installation of a pedestrian bridge.
Once the 370-foot pedestrian bridge is completed, it will connect the east and west portions of Denver’s Overland neighborhood. This bridge will be used by pedestrians and bicyclists.
The Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure says this closure is needed to keep the traveling public safe. Large cranes will be used to set the two spans in place. Each one weighs about 215,000 pounds and is 180 feet long.
Once the bridge is completed in 2027, it will create a safer connection for pedestrians and bicyclists. It will link neighborhoods to trails, transit, parks, and local businesses without requiring residents to cross heavy traffic.
“Our neighborhood is quartered by transportation routes, so having a safe pedestrian bridge that can take people from one side to the other is an amazing development that neighbors have been asking for for years,” Jenn Greiving, President, Overland Park Neighborhood Association, said.
The Santa Fe Drive closure will begin at midnight on Saturday, July 11, and end on Monday, July 13, at 5 a.m. There will be detours in place. This includes:
- Southbound Santa Fe Drive Detour: Traffic will be routed to Platte River Drive to reenter southbound Santa Fe Drive at the West Evans Avenue on-ramp.
- Northbound Santa Fe Drive Detour: Access to northbound Santa Fe Drive will be at Mississippi Avenue via South Broadway Street.
- On-Ramp Closure: The West Evans Avenue on-ramp to northbound Santa Fe Drive will close at noon on Friday, July 10, to prepare for the full weekend closure and will remain closed until 5 a.m. on Monday, July 13. Traffic will be detoured to South Broadway Street to re-enter northbound Santa Fe Drive via Mississippi Avenue.
- Off-Ramp Closure: The southbound Santa Fe Drive off-ramp to West Evans Avenue will close for the full weekend period and remain closed until Friday, Sept. 11, while crews build new sidewalks and perform other concrete work at the southwest corner of the project. Detours will be posted to West Florida Avenue, West Dartmouth Avenue or West Hampden Avenue to bypass the ramp closure
During this closure, DOTI will reopen the underpass on Iowa Avenue. This is a new ADA accessible pathway that will be available between Santa Fe Drive and Acoma Street.
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