On Feb. 16, the Colorado General Assembly resumed its 2021 legislative session. It felt far more like a traditional opening day than the original opening day in January. Leadership gave traditional opening speeches highlighting priorities for the session. Common themes in the speeches included COVID relief, housing, education, healthcare costs, mental health service access, climate change, transportation, and veterans support, as well as justice, equity and inclusion. Both parties highlighted the need to work across the aisle in the upcoming session, through it remains to be seen how well that hope will materialize. Some highlights from the opening addresses can be read here.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis gave his state of the state address on Feb. 17. As always, you can watch or listen to legislative activities at: https://leg.colorado.gov/watch-listen.
In the first 24 hours of this reconvened session, the Senate and House introduced over 200 new bills, with many additional bills anticipated to drop as the week progresses. The CDA lobbying team will go through all these bills in depth to identify which may cross into the oral health space or impact dentistry.
The Senate has several bills in committee already this week, which a Medicaid audit and audiologist-speech pathologist compact in Senate HHS (that is being monitored for dental crossover). Supplemental appropriations bills are scheduled to move forward through Senate Appropriations early next week.
This session will no doubt be busy and the CDA will keep members informed as it progresses. As always, if you have questions about specific bills or legislation, please don’t hesitate to contact the CDA at 303-740-6900.
