Last year, the Democratic-controlled Colorado Legislature passed the Health Care Affordability Act, seeking to extend Medicaid coverage to tens of thousands of Coloradans who would otherwise go uninsured. The law went into effect in April, with impressive results:

The point of the Health Care Affordability Act, considered Gov. Bill Ritter's most significant health care reform, is to create a pot of money through hospital fees that would draw matching federal money. The state is using the additional money — expected to reach $1.2 billion annually — to provide more Coloradans with health insurance, as well as pay back hospitals for treating patients who are either uninsured or on Medicaid.

Many hospitals, especially those that treat a large number of indigent patients or those on Medicaid, actually end up with a net gain of millions of dollars through the program, even when accounting for the new fees. But the plan also does a good job of minimizing any overall losses absorbed by hospitals that see a net loss:

Centura Health's Adventist hospitals — Porter, Avista, Littleton and Parker — will lose a combined $6.3 million through the hospital fee. Still, the 12-hospital Centura system comes out winning, with a net gain of about $4.4 million.

"The state did a very nice job of trying to limit the losers," said Randy Safady, Centura's chief financial officer. "We have a number of losing hospitals and we have a number of winning hospitals."

Overall, the new law is expected to help about 67,500 more Coloradans receive health insurance, filling a key need for many of those individuals until the federal reform law is fully implemented in 2014.