Aurora holds two of the metro's biggest employment anchors: the Anschutz Medical Campus, with the University of Colorado hospital complex and Children's Hospital Colorado, and Buckley Space Force Base on the city's east side. Between medical campus shift workers, military families, and one of the most diverse immigrant populations in the state, the coverage questions here span nearly every situation an agent sees.
The rules here
| Short-term products | Not available in Colorado |
| Extended short-term (multi-year) | Not available |
| Products available | ACA marketplace, supplemental |
| Exchange type | State-based (Connect for Health Colorado) |
| Open enrollment | Set by the state exchange, generally opening November 1 |
| Medicaid expansion | Yes |
What's available in Aurora
| Coverage line | Available here | Key limit | Learn more |
|---|---|---|---|
| ACA marketplace plans | Yes | Open enrollment or a qualifying event | ACA plans |
| Short-term medical | No | Colorado's caps leave no carrier willing to sell | Short-term |
| Extended short-term (multi-year) | No | Zero market statewide | Extended plans |
| Fixed indemnity | No | Not sold as standalone coverage in Colorado | |
| Supplemental (accident, critical illness, dental, vision) | Yes | Pays set amounts, pairs with major medical | Accident · Critical illness · Dental · Vision |
None of the supplemental products count as minimum essential coverage. They are additions to a medical plan, not alternatives.
What one person pays for coverage in Colorado
Average monthly premiums for individual coverage. Family pricing differs; quotes are individual.
| Coverage type | Monthly premium (individual) | What that number is |
|---|---|---|
| ACA marketplace (before subsidy) | $673 avg. | State average, before tax credits (CMS Marketplace OEP, 2026).1 |
| ACA marketplace (after average subsidy) | $187 after credit | State average, after the average tax credit, among subsidized enrollees (CMS Marketplace OEP, 2026).1 |
| Employer coverage (single / family) | $698 / $2081 single / family | State average total monthly premium, single / family; employee pays about $159/mo toward single coverage (MEPS-IC, 2024).2 |
| Medicaid | $0 or nominal for those who qualify | Program design, not an average; eligibility is income-based5 |
| Accident | $39.95 median | Among GetHealthPlans.com clients in Colorado with individual coverage, as of July 2026.3 |
| Critical Illness | $55.08 median | Among GetHealthPlans.com clients in Colorado with individual coverage, as of July 2026.3 |
Hospital campuses run on a mix of staff, per diem, and traveler contracts, and each arrangement lands differently on that scale. Your credit follows your household's annual income; no estimate is final until the exchange processes it.
Averages from federal data and our own client base, not quotes. Your price depends on your age, household, income, and plan choice.
Aurora at a glance
The Anschutz campus has made Aurora the state's medical employment center, drawing clinicians, researchers, and support staff, while Buckley's military and contractor workforce adds thousands more jobs. The city's international corridors along Colfax and Havana support a dense small business economy of restaurants, markets, and services, most of them too small for group benefits.
| Population | County | Metro |
|---|---|---|
| ~386,000 | Arapahoe (FIPS 08005) | Denver-Aurora-Lakewood |
Three Aurora situations
Yonas, 44, owns a market on Havana Street. Self-employed for a decade, he buys family coverage through Connect for Health Colorado. One application checks every family member: his teenagers land in public coverage while he and his wife take a subsidized silver plan.
Brianna, 31, travel nurse finishing a contract at the medical campus. Her agency benefits stop between contracts. Rather than gambling on gaps, she keeps her own marketplace plan year round, adjusting her income estimate as contracts stack up. No short-term filler exists in Colorado, and she stopped needing one.
Marcus, 35, contractor at Buckley whose position ended with a program cut. Losing employer coverage triggers a Special Enrollment Period. He compares COBRA against a marketplace plan and picks based on total family cost for the rest of the plan year.
How Colorado's rules work
Colorado's short-term insurance rules are strict enough that no carrier offers the product; the market is zero. State regulation is the binding constraint, so federal decisions about short-term enforcement change nothing on the ground in Arapahoe County.
Everything therefore moves through the exchange and Medicaid. Connect for Health Colorado sets its own open enrollment calendar, generally opening November 1 each fall. Colorado expanded Medicaid, so adults qualify on income alone, and children in the same household often land in a different program than their parents. Qualifying events, from contract endings to base reassignments to births, open Special Enrollment Periods of roughly 60 days. The system covers the transitions if you move inside the windows.
Contracts, separations, new arrivals: transitions are our specialty. Talk to a licensed Colorado agent, no obligation.
Keep reading — more Colorado guides
Premium data methodology. 1 Marketplace premium averages reflect the average monthly premium before advance premium tax credits, the average monthly premium after advance premium tax credits among subsidized enrollees, and the percentage of enrollees receiving advance premium tax credits, for Colorado, as reported in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Marketplace Open Enrollment Period Public Use Files, 2026 plan year, available at cms.gov. Figures are statewide averages across all metal tiers, ages, and household sizes; your premium will differ based on your age, household, income, county, and plan selection.
2 Employer coverage averages reflect the average total monthly premium for single and family coverage at private-sector establishments in Colorado, including both employer and employee contributions, as reported in the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Insurance Component (MEPS-IC), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2024 tables, available at meps.ahrq.gov. Employee contribution figure reflects the average employee share of the single-coverage premium. Employer plan costs vary by employer, plan design, and firm size.
3 Client averages are calculated from GetHealthPlans.com (MTG Insurance Agency LLC) internal book-of-business records as of July 15, 2026 and reflect the median or mean monthly premium, as labeled, among active policies providing individual coverage (one covered person) of the stated product type held by our clients residing in the stated state or, where labeled agency-wide, across all states in which we operate. Family and multi-person policies are excluded so that figures reflect what one person pays. Figures are shown only for states and products where our records include a sufficient number of active individual policies to report a meaningful average, with a minimum of ten; combinations below that threshold are not shown. Where a figure is labeled "median," half of our client policies in that group pay less and half pay more. Our client base reflects the products we sell, skews toward medically underwritten coverage, and may not represent all buyers or all plans available in a state. These figures are historical averages of premiums actually paid by our clients, are not quotes, offers, or projections, and are not statements of what any individual will pay. Individual premiums are determined by the insurer at application based on age, location, term length, benefit selections, and underwriting outcomes.
4 No federal or state agency publishes average premium data for short-term limited duration insurance or fixed indemnity insurance. Where we do not display a client-base figure for these products, it is because we do not have sufficient policy volume in that state to report a meaningful average. Short-term and fixed indemnity products are medically underwritten, are not major medical coverage, are not required to cover pre-existing conditions or essential health benefits, and do not constitute minimum essential coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
5 Medicaid and CHIP are public programs, not insurance products sold by this agency. Premiums are $0 or nominal for those who qualify; eligibility is determined by your state based on income, household size, and other factors. The figure shown describes program design, not an average. Contact your state Medicaid agency or HealthCare.gov to check eligibility.