Colorado Medicaid will now continuously enroll babies up to age 3 and prisoners for a year, post-release. By a ratio of 27 to 1, PBS used some variation of "far right" to "far left"

Colorado Medicaid will now continuously enroll babies up to age 3 and prisoners for a year, post-release.

A reader sent me the State of Colorado press release linked first below. Due to passage of a 2023 law (linked second below), our state is expanding Medicaid coverage for a couple groups.

--Any child up to age 3 (quoting the release):

"The policy will support continuous coverage for children from birth to age three who are eligible for Health First Colorado (Colorado’s Medicaid program) or Children’s Health Insurance program (CHP+). This expands continuous coverage for young children to 36 months, rather than the current continuous coverage of 12 months."

--And any newly-released prisoner up to 12 months from release (again, quoting):

"CMS [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services--the Federal agency which had to sign off on this for Colorado to move forward] also approved Colorado’s request to allow adults leaving a state prison to maintain continuous Medicaid coverage eligibility for 12 months regardless of any changes in income or other fluctuations."

Both of these changes to Medicaid in Colorado will take effect in January of next year.

Let me excerpt again from the tail end of that latter quote so you can get the point of these changes: "...regardless of any changes in income or other fluctuations."

Medicaid and others are income qualified, meaning that if you make too much money, you cannot be in the program. These changes for both 0 - 3 year olds and for newly-released inmates mean that you can, for the extended periods outlined, make above the income limit and stay in Medicaid.

It also means extra costs to both Federal and State taxpayers because we'll have more people on the rolls now than before. To get a sense of the extra, I attached the estimated cost table from the bill's fiscal note as screenshot 1. The first highlighted column on the left is probably the best forecast. The second highlighted is more speculative (and I wouldn't even look at the third--that's too far out).

Having healthy children, regardless of family income (remember children don't get to decide what they're born into) is a value that I support. I suppose too that reasonable arguments could be made as to whether or not its more cost-efficient to pay for Medicaid for newly-released prisoners so they can get regular care and checkups, rather than having them wash up in emergency departments with more costly needs.

But those feelings have to be balanced against the idea that nothing in this world is free and expanding social benefits means more costs to families who may have struggles of their own.

I would like to see (and long time readers of this site would recognize this) some way to accomplish the goals above without such extra cost. Something that was more efficient than the simple "let's keep them on the dole for longer to ensure care".**

Maybe a sliding scale with pro-rated benefits as incomes rise? Maybe a gradual release? I'm open to other ideas too, just something other than paying more for longer.

One last tidbit. Those that saw "hypocrisy" at the top may have wondered where that comes in. It does now. Take a look at screenshot 2.

That is from the bill's page and lists the sponsors. Note who's at the bottom? It's Senator Kirkmeyer. The same senator who took Polis to task for fiscal irresponsibility at a recent JBC hearing (see the third link below for that newsletter).

I'm glad she blasted Polis. He needs it. But it's hard to take her seriously when she makes a show of fiscal responsibility while being a sponsor of efforts like these. It makes one think that her decisions are motivated by the same kind of political calculus you see from others just like, well, Polis.

**Along with something that would incentivize an earlier return to productive earning by the recipients frankly.

https://hcpf.colorado.gov/press-release/colorado-medicaid-continuous-eligibility?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb23-1300

https://open.substack.com/pub/coloradoaccountabilityproject/p/free-river-condition-governor-polis?r=15ij6n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

---

By a ratio of 27 to 1, PBS used some variation of "far right" to "far left"

I have yet to hear it personally, but a common retort by reporters to comments about biased reporting is "tell me a fact I got wrong".

Often, there is none. The facts in the story are accurate.

This does not mean there isn't bias. Bias can show up in many ways and the article linked below offers me a chance to flesh out one way it creeps into reporting, subtly or perhaps like with PBS's reporting NOT so subtly.

First the link below. The story below is a version of other media studies I've seen before. In essence those doing the researching sat and watched literal hours of media, looking for and counting something (a particular reference, etc.).

This is, as you might imagine, pretty costly in terms of time (possibly money depending on who and how you count) as well as tedious.

What the authors found was that PBS's News Hour was quite quite slanted in their coverage. Screenshot 1 attached is the topline points from the study (there is more detail and context, of course, in the link below).

There are a couple of dynamics at play here with regard to media bias. One is something I have covered before and won't re-cover here: what is covered by an outlet vs. what is not covered. You see hints of this in the top of the article, quoting with link and bolded text intact, "Introducing an interview with left-wing author Joshua Green, PBS News Hour co-anchor Geoff Bennett made a rare media admission: 'Much has been made of the far right’s strong sway over the GOP and its agenda. But what doesn’t get nearly as much attention is the far left’s influence in the Democratic Party.'”

The other dynamic, the one I do want to highlight more is the one involving labels. Not only WHICH labels are chosen, but WHEN they are applied vs. when they are not (alternatively whether a label is applied vs. not).

As you can see in the article, even labels which are by nature perhaps pejorative but only slightly so--meaning labels like "far-right" which can carry connotations but are a far cry from, say, "extremist" or "right-wing nut job"--can betray a tilt in coverage.

They do this all the more so when the ratio of who gets labeled is this high. The label, applied by a wide margin to one group vs. another, then acts as a tag.

Like bold fluorescent yellow highlighting on a page, calling one group "far-right" without similar labels for those on the other side of zero is there to get your attention. It acts to set apart one group in comparison to others. Otherwise, why mention it?

I have seen (and called out on their social media) similar things happening with the Colorado Sun and with 9News (Kyle Clark). The specific article escapes my mind, hence no link below, but more than once I have seen Sun reporter Jesse Aaron Paul use words similar to far-right when characterizing supporters of conservative values such as gun rights (same with Clark at 9News, I'm thinking in particular of his label for groups like Rocky Mountain Gun Owners), but no such wording when it comes to describing similarly hard-line proponents more leftist/liberal causes like abortion.

Bias in media can take many forms. It can be an inaccurate story. It can be a story that ignores relevant facts. It can be an outlet that routinely ignores stories that matter to those whose ideology differs from that of the organization. It can take the form of some sort of preferential treatment to one group, be it political, social or otherwise.

It can also show up in how a news organization labels things. The labels themselves needn't be particularly strong, there just needs to be some sort of disparity in how they're applied. That, more than the pejorative nature of the label is what matters.

It just needs to be clearly there to highlight one point of view, one particular thing that is not highlighted for others.

https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/clay-waters/2024/12/04/pbs-news-hours-extreme-makeover-27-times-more-likely-find-far-right