Health insurance for Coloradans remained steady after the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the 2025 Colorado Health Access Survey (CHAS), released November 19 by the Colorado Health Institute (CHI), a member of NNPHI’s national network. The state’s uninsured rate stood at 5.9%, in line with pre-COVID years.
What changed for many is how they got their coverage. Medicaid membership fell to 21.0% of the state, down from 30.0% in the 2023 survey, when a pandemic-related rule kept more people in the program. More than half of Coloradans (53.0%) had employer-sponsored insurance for the first time since 2019. And 6.7% were covered in the individual market.
“With federal and state policies in flux, it’s essential to have reliable, nonpartisan data to understand the experience of Coloradans,” said Sara Schmitt, CHI’s President and CEO. “CHI is committed to providing this service through the CHAS, now and in the years to come.”
The CHAS provides Colorado’s best data on health, access to care, and the social factors that affect health, including housing and food security. CHI makes the data free and available to the public. The 2025 CHAS includes Spanish-language components. Participants were able to take the survey in Spanish, and all accompanying materials are available in Spanish.
One notable finding was an improvement in mental health. The percentage of Coloradans reporting eight or more days of poor mental health in the past month dropped to 20.5%.
New this year was a series of questions on loneliness. The CHAS found that 22.1% of Coloradans answered the questions in a way that indicated they were lonely. The survey also found that lonely people were twice as likely to report poor general health (26.0% to 10.8%) and four times as likely to report poor mental health than people who were not lonely (48.6% to 11.7%).
“The CHAS provides some much-needed local data on the problem of loneliness,” said Suman Mathur, CHI’s Director of the CHAS. “The survey shows a stark connection between loneliness and not just mental health, but physical health, too.”
Other notable findings:
- While insurance can make health care more accessible, it doesn’t always make it more affordable: 19.1% of Coloradans with employer-sponsored insurance could not afford general doctor care, specialist care, or prescriptions they needed because of cost; 23.2% of insured Coloradans put off mental health care because of cost.
- In the past year, a third of Coloradans had trouble paying for health care, housing, or food — 27.5% put off health care due to cost; 11.3% had problems paying their rent or mortgage; and 10.5% ate less than they thought they should because they could not afford food.
Data and graphics by region are available to download on CHI’s 2025 CHAS website.
