It's time that we take mental health seriously with real solutions.
Eight years ago in Fruita, I learned Mesa County had the highest suicide rate in Colorado. Eight years later, it still does. That is a failure of leadership — and as Governor, I will end it.
THE FRUITA STORY
In 2018, during my first run for Governor, I attended a candidate forum in Fruita, Colorado. Someone in that room put a chart in front of me that I have never been able to forget: Mesa County had the highest suicide rate in the state of Colorado.
It blew my mind. Not because Mesa County was failing — but because the system was failing Mesa County. There were not enough providers. There were not enough beds. There were not enough crisis services. And there were nowhere near enough resources to bend the curve.
Eight years later, I am running again. And the chart looks the same.
According to the Mesa County Public Health 2024 Suicide Report, on average, 50 Mesa County residents die by suicide each year — a rate of 31.0 per 100,000 people. That is significantly higher than Colorado’s state rate of 21.1 and the national rate of 13.9. Suicide is the 7th leading cause of death in Mesa County and the 4th leading cause among residents under 65. From 2022 to 2024, more than half of all suicide deaths in Mesa County involved a firearm. Roughly three-quarters involved drugs or alcohol. Mesa County has carried this disproportionate burden for over a decade.
And Mesa County is not alone. The Eastern Plains, the San Luis Valley, the high country — every rural corner of this state — has been left to fight a mental health war with empty hands.
This is not a Mesa County story. It is a Colorado story. And it is a story I refuse to be the Governor who lets continue.
THE STATE OF THE CRISIS
- On May 25, 2021, Children’s Hospital Colorado declared a “State of Emergency” in pediatric mental health — the first such declaration in the hospital’s 117-year history. That declaration has never been rescinded, because the crisis has not ended.
- Suicide is the leading cause of death for Colorado children ages 10 and above.
- Children’s Hospital Colorado reported a 90% increase in demand for behavioral health treatment in just two years. Their behavioral-health emergency unit in Colorado Springs hit capacity within two years of opening.
- Colorado consistently ranks in the bottom tier of U.S. states for access to mental health care.
- The provider shortage is worst on the Western Slope, the Eastern Plains, and in the San Luis Valley — the exact regions where the suicide burden is heaviest.
This is what a generation of underinvestment looks like. We are losing children. We are losing veterans. We are losing working-age parents. And the system that is supposed to catch them is, in too many places, not even built.
MY PLAN — TWO LEAD PILLARS, FIVE COMMITMENTS
LEAD PILLAR 1: RURAL ACCESS — END THE MENTAL HEALTH DESERTS
If you live in Cortez, in Lamar, in Walden, in Alamosa, or in Craig, you should not have to drive four hours to see a psychiatrist. You should not have to wait six weeks for a counseling appointment. You should not have to send your child out of state for inpatient care.
As Governor I will:
- Designate every Colorado county a Mental Health Provider Shortage Area for the purposes of state-funded loan repayment, recruitment incentives, and licensing reciprocity — and triple the size of the Colorado Health Service Corps so we are recruiting therapists, psychologists, and psychiatric nurse practitioners into rural communities at scale.
- Build a Western Slope Behavioral Health Hospital — modeled after West Springs in Grand Junction but with significantly expanded inpatient and crisis-stabilization capacity — so kids in Mesa, Delta, Montrose, Garfield, and surrounding counties are not flown to Aurora or sent out of state.
- Stand up Regional Crisis Hubs in the San Luis Valley, the Eastern Plains, and the Northwest Mountain region — 24/7 walk-in stabilization, with mobile crisis response that arrives in under an hour.
- Fund tele-behavioral health permanently with broadband investments so a kid in Springfield, Colorado can see a licensed counselor without leaving their school.
- Partner with rural hospitals and Federally Qualified Health Centers to embed behavioral health into primary care, where rural Coloradans actually go.
- Deliver on Mesa County specifically — including dedicated state investment in the Mesa County Suicide Prevention Coalition, Grand Valley Connects, the Second Wind Foundation, and VA Western Colorado Health System — because a problem this persistent has earned a solution this serious.
LEAD PILLAR 2: YOUTH & SCHOOLS — ANSWER THE STATE OF EMERGENCY
Children’s Hospital Colorado declared the emergency. State leadership has yet to answer it the way it deserves.
As Governor I will:
- Mandate a 1:250 student-to-counselor ratio in every Colorado public school district within four years, with state funding to back it up — recognizing the American School Counselor Association’s recommended ratio.
- Build out school-based health centers to provide mental health screening and treatment on campus, especially in rural districts and Title I schools.
- Fund a Youth Crisis Bed Buildout so no child in psychiatric crisis sits in an ER for days waiting for placement.
- Implement universal trauma-informed training for educators, paraprofessionals, school resource officers, and bus drivers — every adult a kid encounters on a school day.
- Fully fund 988 statewide and dedicate a youth-specific text and chat line co-designed with teens.
- Address the gun side of the youth suicide equation honestly — fund safe-storage programs, expand the Colorado Gun Shop Project, and partner with firearm-owning families on voluntary out-of-home storage during a crisis.
COMMITMENT 3: WORKFORCE
Colorado does not have a mental health system problem. It has a people in the mental health system problem. We do not have the workers.
- Loan forgiveness for therapists, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychiatric nurse practitioners who serve in shortage areas — including rural, urban underserved, and culturally specific communities.
- Expand training pipelines at Colorado Mesa University, Adams State, CSU-Pueblo, MSU Denver, and Fort Lewis College.
- License reciprocity reform so out-of-state providers can practice here in 30 days, not 18 months.
- Pay Medicaid behavioral health providers a rate that does not drive them out of business.
COMMITMENT 4: INSURANCE PARITY — MAKE THE LAW REAL
Federal and state law already require insurers to cover mental health on equal footing with physical health. They routinely don’t. Coloradans are denied care, charged out-of-network rates for in-network needs, and stonewalled on prior authorization.
- I will direct the Colorado Division of Insurance to enforce parity aggressively, with public reporting of insurer violations and meaningful financial penalties.
- I will establish a Mental Health Patient Advocate within the Department of Regulatory Agencies to help Coloradans fight denials in real time.
COMMITMENT 5: RESTRUCTURE THE BEHAVIORAL HEALTH ADMINISTRATION
The Behavioral Health Administration was created with the right intentions, but it is not delivering what Coloradans need. The crisis is worsening on its watch. Counties, providers, and families consistently report a system that is hard to navigate, slow to act, and unaccountable to the people it serves.
As Governor I will restructure the BHA with three guiding principles:
- Outcomes over org charts. The BHA’s performance will be measured publicly, every quarter, against suicide rates, wait times, bed availability, provider supply, and Coloradan-reported access — not against bureaucratic process metrics.
- Decentralize delivery, centralize accountability. Crisis response, treatment placement, and provider recruitment should run through regional hubs that know their communities. Statewide standards, statewide funding, statewide accountability — local execution.
- Co-governance with the people it serves. No more “stakeholder engagement” theater. Families, peers, providers, tribal nations, county commissioners, and rural representatives will sit on a restructured BHA Board with real authority over budget and strategy.
I do not believe Coloradans are broken. I believe the system that is supposed to serve them is broken.
Every life lost to suicide in Mesa County, every child sleeping in a Children’s Hospital ER waiting for a bed, every veteran in Pueblo or Colorado Springs alone with a loaded firearm — every one of them is the responsibility of a state that promised better and has not delivered.
I will deliver.
