Hey there, Colorado, welcome to another edition of The Temperature. We go now to some urgent breaking news:
Coors Field named one of the best MLB stadiums to survive “28 Years Later”-style zombie apocalypse
…
I mean … have they seen the team that plays there?
This PR pitch landed twice in my inbox in recent weeks. The backstory is that a sports betting company did a “study” ranking baseball stadia based on things like “security” — does the stadium have a roof? — proximity to water, and sustainability. Coors received high marks because you could in theory grow crops in its outfield and the South Platte — the South Platte! — is a potential nearby source of drinking water.
(If you’re curious, Coors ranked seventh among MLB stadiums, Seattle’s T-Mobile Park was tops and Detroit’s Comerica Park was, erm, undead last.)
Just a reminder that not all studies are worth putting your money on.
This week, we have some news on research that is a bit more reliable, plus a couple deep dives into the possible health insurance apocalypse. As Matt Holliday might’ve said to Todd Helton if facing down a marauding zombie Charlie Blackmon, let’s hit it.
Reporter
TEMP CHECK
HEALTH INSURANCE
What can the state do to fight spiking health insurance prices?
As we reported last week, prices for health insurance plans on the individual market are poised to skyrocket next year. But the state’s insurance commissioner says Colorado has options for lessening the impact.
One option Commissioner Michael Conway isn’t counting on?
“I don’t think we can rely on the federal government,” Conway said in an interview.
Conway said the state will instead look to tinker with programs it has built during the Polis administration. These include a program called reinsurance that helps insurers pay their most costly claims; a board that can limit what insurers and consumers pay for prescription drugs; and the Colorado Option, which tries to engineer plans with richer benefits and lower prices.
“We have things that are tangible we can use,” Conway said. “From that standpoint, we’re in a much, much better position than we were back in 2017, 2018.”
(Those years fell during the first Trump administration — the last time the Affordable Care Act was under significant threat in Congress.)
Lawmakers and state officials could especially look to reinsurance to try to reduce prices. The state pools money from federal dollars and a fee on insurers. A chunk of that money gets paid as insurance to insurers, helping them cover their highest-cost claims so they can keep prices lower for everybody.
Right now, the program is set to shrink for next year because of declining federal funding, which is contributing to some of the price increases. But lawmakers had considered a bill during this year’s legislative session that would have increased the fee on insurers, bringing in more money to partially offset the shrinking federal support.
That bill — House Bill 1297 — died in committee. But, though Conway didn’t commit to this, it could be brought back in some form next year or during a possible special session.
The state could look to tinker with other programs, as well, including one that provides state-funded subsidies to consumers with low incomes.
“We think we can use the tools that we have to help alleviate the suffering that people will face,” Conway said.
Section by John Ingold | Reporter
ACA SUBSIDIES
Will Congress fix the subsidy cliff? There might not be enough time.
A big reason insurance prices are set to spike in 2026 is the end of enhanced federal subsidies that consumers began receiving during the pandemic.
The extra subsidies helped keep insurance relatively affordable for many during periods of high inflation, and they also solved a long-standing problem: the “subsidy cliff” that people fell off when they made too much money to qualify for the original subsidies.
The original Affordable Care Act subsidies cut off abruptly for people making above 400% of the federal poverty line — about $63,000 a year for a single person and $129,000 for a family of four. This means people above those limits had to pay full price for insurance.
In places with a high cost of living and more expensive insurance — say, many of Colorado’s mountain communities — this could mean spending thousands or tens of thousands a year just to buy a plan.
The enhanced subsidies provided more financial assistance to people already receiving subsidies, but they also smoothed out the cliff, extending help to people above 400% of the poverty line.
The impact of the enhanced subsidy expiration could be so great nationwide, that there are still occasional rumblings that an extension may yet be possible.
Drew Altman, the president and CEO of the nonpartisan health care think tank KFF, told reporters during a webinar this month that the issue could potentially come up in ongoing negotiations over spending bills.
“A big question is whether Democrats make it a drop-dead issue for a continuing resolution, threatening to close the government down by making that their big issue,” Altman said. “We don’t know the answer to that yet, or how afraid the Republicans are of that as a midterm issue.”
But Colorado Insurance Commissioner Michael Conway said, even if the subsidies are continued at the last minute, it might be too late to make a difference this year.
This is because the subsidies are tied into insurers’ thinking about who will be able to afford insurance next year. If subsidies are more generous, more people will buy plans, allowing insurers to spread out the cost of paying for medical care.
But if subsidies shrink, as they will next year, fewer people are likely to buy plans and those who do are likely to really need them. As Kaiser Permanente put it in its filing to the state this year: “Healthier risk is projected to leave the market in the face of higher rates and lower subsidies.”
Conway said this shows why a last-minute extension of the enhanced may come too late. Insurers would have to completely redo their calculations and get them to regulators, who would have to redo their evaluations. And all of this has to happen before October, when the state insurance exchange makes its final preparations for open enrollment, which starts in November.
Conway said the realistic deadline for any extension is early September.
“But if we have to move mountains, we will try to move mountains,” he said.
Section by John Ingold | Reporter
SCIENCE
A new CU study raises concerns about the artificial sweetener erythritol
A new study by researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder suggest that the artificial sweetener erythritol may not be too sweet to your cells.
The study, which was published last month in the Journal of Applied Physiology, found that the sweetener can alter brain cells in a way that potentially increases the risk for stroke. The study joins others that have found cardiovascular risks with erythritol.
“Our study adds to the evidence suggesting that non-nutritive sweeteners that have generally been purported to be safe, may not come without negative health consequences,” Christopher DeSouza, a professor of integrative physiology and the director of CU’s Integrative Vascular Biology Lab, told the university publication CU Boulder Today.
Erythritol is used in a wide variety of drinks, foods and chewing gum as a zero-calorie substitute. It is a sugar alcohol often made by fermenting corn.
The CU study was conducted on cells — it wasn’t a clinical trial on people. Specifically, researchers looked at human cells that line blood vessels in the brain. The researchers treated the cells with erythritol and then watched what happened.
The researchers found that the treated cells changed in ways that could contribute to a stroke. For instance, they released less of a molecule that relaxes blood vessels and more of a molecule that constricts them. And they produced less of a clot-busting compound when challenged with a clot-forming compound.
“Big picture, if your vessels are more constricted and your ability to break down blood clots is lowered, your risk of stroke goes up,” Auburn Berry, a CU graduate student who is the study’s first author, told CU Boulder Today.
You can read more about the study on CU’s website.
Section by John Ingold | Reporter
MORE ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTH NEWS
CHART OF THE WEEK
Where insurance will go up the most
As we reported last week, insurers on average statewide are asking for a 28% increase in premium prices in the individual market for 2026. But some areas of the state are going to get hit harder, while others won’t see increases quite as high.
Mesa County and other parts of the Western Slope are poised to see the biggest increase. These communities once had some of the most expensive health insurance premiums in the country. Because of that, the state’s reinsurance program was engineered to disproportionately benefit these areas.
Requested price increases vary by insurance company, too. Anthem and Rocky Mountain Health Plans, which is owned by UnitedHealthcare, have both requested increases above 30%. Kaiser Permanente and the Intermountain Health-owned SelectHealth are requesting the smallest increases.
Section by John Ingold | Reporter
Woohoo, you made it through to the end! Stick with the Temp for all your baseball-related zombie news. And thanks for supporting independent journalism with your wonderful, juicy BRAINS.
Catch ya next week (when Mike is back in command and we promise it will be less weird).
— John & Michael
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