The State of Colorado may not be able to afford the American Health Care Act, should it ever become a law.

The proposed AHCA would cut $832 Billion from the federal budget for medicaid. Those familiar with health care expect those costs to shift to the states.

During the 2017 Legislative Session, Colorado law makers worked until the last minute to sustain the Hospital Provider fee, the money that pays hospitals for Medicaid treatments among other things. That was after Governor Hicknelooper proposed a multi-million dollar cut. There is a feeling the State of Colorado won’t be able to cover additional medicaid costs.

“We think that the state is only going to have a couple options.” said Chris Thomas, the CEO and President of Community Hospital. ” They can raise taxes acroiss the state of they can cut payments to providers. My guess is the more palitable solution for our state represetatives is to cut payments to providers.”

Another option is those in the medicaid or those who gained coverage after the ACA, could become uninsured. Without a primary care doctor, in some situations those people would have to turn to the emergency room and according to Thomas, that’s one of the most expensive places to go for health care.

“We need people to see their primary care doc[tor]. If we are forcing them into emergency rooms, that’s not going to lower the cost of health care. It may change coverage, it may change who’s paying, but at the end of the day we need to lower the cost of healthcare” said Thomas.

Thomas does not expect the bill that the U.S. Senate Reviews will be anything similar to the U.S. House bill pased earlier in May.