Protecting Access to Rural Healthcare

Legislative Wins to Support Colorado’s Safety-Net Clinics

Peaks to Plains Government Relations partnered with Salud Family Health to help pass two landmark pieces of legislation that protect healthcare access for rural communities and vulnerable patients across Colorado. In places like Trinidad—where health providers are few and far between—these bills are not about expanding services, they’re about ensuring that what already exists can survive.

For decades, clinics like Salud have been the quiet backbone of care for low-income families, Medicaid patients, and the uninsured. But despite their essential role, these clinics have operated under constant financial pressure. This past legislative session, we helped advance policy that offers real, long-term solutions—designed specifically for the realities of rural Colorado.

The first bill creates a way for health centers to bring in new, creative sources of funding—allowing clinics to establish subsidiaries that could compete for higher for-profit reimbursement rates, to subsidize their safety-net services. . The second bill establishes a statewide fund to stabilize safety-net providers, ensuring that the clinics doing the hardest work aren’t the first to close their doors.

Together, these two new laws give rural health centers greater flexibility, more stability, and the financial breathing room they need to keep delivering care in the communities they’ve always served. If a clinic like Salud in Trinidad were ever to shut down, patients would have no local option—many would have to travel hours just to be seen in Pueblo. These policies help prevent that from happening.

We’re proud to have played a strong role in passing legislation that protects rural healthcare—not through short-term fixes, but through smart, forward-looking policy that puts patients and communities first.