6 Free Therapy Sessions for Adults—Funded by a New Fee on Your Internet Bill

The Bottom Line

This bill aims to do for adults what the state recently did for kids: offer free, short-term mental health counseling. It pays for up to six therapy sessions per adult by adding a new 25-cent monthly surcharge to every broadband internet bill in Colorado.

What This Bill Actually Does

Colorado recently found success with a program that provides free therapy sessions to youth. This bill attempts to replicate that exact model for the rest of the population. It creates the Adult Mental Health Services Program, a sweeping initiative designed to give any eligible adult in Colorado access to up to six free mental health or substance use disorder counseling sessions. To make the process frictionless, the state would launch a centralized web portal. Instead of spending days calling therapists to see who is accepting new patients, you could take an initial mental health screening on the site, view a list of participating providers with actual openings, and immediately book an appointment.

To pay for all this, the bill creates the Mental Health Services Enterprise as a government-owned business operating under the state’s Behavioral Health Administration. By structuring it as an "enterprise" that collects a "fee" rather than a tax, the state can raise the money without needing voter approval under the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR). Starting January 1, 2027, this enterprise would levy a Mental Health Services Access Surcharge on internet service accounts statewide. The fee is capped at 25 cents per month, and your internet service provider would act as the collection agent.

If the enterprise happens to collect more money than it needs to cover the six sessions for participating adults, the bill creates a secondary bucket to catch the overflow. The Internet-Enabled Mental Health Access Grant Program would take any excess revenue and award it to outside organizations—like health-tech startups or nonprofits—that use the internet to facilitate mental health care access, whether through apps, online screening tools, or telehealth infrastructure.

What It Means for You

The most immediate impact you’ll notice is on your monthly budget, though it’s incredibly small. If you pay a broadband internet bill at your home or apartment, you will see a new line item starting in 2027. The law caps this surcharge at 25 cents a month, which works out to a maximum of $3 a year. In exchange for that pocket change, the state is standing up a massive new safety net for behavioral health.

Whether you have top-tier corporate health insurance, bare-bones coverage, or no insurance at all, you would be eligible for up to six free mental health sessions. We all know how frustrating the current system can be—you finally decide to seek help, only to navigate a maze of out-of-network warnings, unreturned voicemails, and long waitlists. The state's portal aims to eliminate that friction. You could log on, take a quick assessment, and immediately see licensed professionals who are ready to see you, either in person or via telehealth.

The bill is smartly designed with long-term care in mind. The portal's algorithm will prioritize matching you with therapists who accept your specific insurance, if you have it. That way, once your six state-funded sessions run out, you can seamlessly transition to paying through your insurance without having to start over with a new therapist.

It is worth noting that this is a first-come, first-served system. The bill explicitly states that reimbursement for sessions is subject to available money. If a large percentage of Coloradans decide to take advantage of the program, the fund could run dry before the year is out. But while the sessions last, your privacy is fully protected; participating therapists are bound by the exact same strict state and federal confidentiality laws as they are for private-pay clients.

What It Means for Your Business

If you operate an internet service provider (ISP) in Colorado, this bill essentially turns your billing department into a collection agency for the state. Starting January 1, 2027, you will be legally required to add the new mental health surcharge to every account holder's billing statement. It must be clearly listed as a separate line item. You will then need to remit these funds to the state enterprise on a monthly basis. To offset the administrative headache of updating your billing software, the bill allows ISPs to deduct and retain 1% of the collected surcharges.

However, the compliance requirements are strict. You must maintain detailed records of the fees collected from every account for at least three years. If you fail to file a report, file an incorrect one, or miss a payment, the state will estimate what you owe and slap you with a 15% penalty plus a 1% monthly interest charge on the delinquent amount.

For the state's behavioral health workforce—licensed psychiatrists, psychologists, clinical social workers, marriage and family therapists, and addiction counselors—this program opens up a massive new client acquisition channel. Providers will need to apply to the state to demonstrate eligibility and agree to accept the state's flat reimbursement rate. The state's fiscal analysts estimate this rate will be set around $134.51 per session, regardless of whether the visit is in-person or via telehealth. The one major catch: to be eligible for the program, you must guarantee you have the schedule capacity to offer all six sessions to any client you accept through the portal.

Finally, the bill creates notable opportunities for tech vendors and digital health startups. The state will need to bid out a contract to build and maintain the statewide scheduling portal, which fiscal analysts estimate will cost roughly $1 million upfront. Additionally, the Internet-Enabled Mental Health Access Grant Program creates a dedicated funding stream for companies building innovative ways to deliver behavioral health services online, provided the core therapy program is fully funded first.

Follow the Money

According to the state's fiscal note, capping the fee at 25 cents across an estimated 2.4 million internet service accounts will generate about $7.1 million annually once fully implemented. Because the state is structuring the managing entity as a government-owned "enterprise" charging a "fee" in exchange for a service, this money does not count toward the state's TABOR revenue limits and does not require voter approval. The internet providers will keep roughly $72,000 a year of that total to cover their administrative costs.

Standing up a program of this size requires significant upfront capital. The state plans to spend nearly $1.9 million in the first year just on administration, which includes hiring 4.5 full-time employees, securing the $1 million web portal contract, and launching a $450,000 statewide public awareness campaign. Once the system is running, the vast majority of the ongoing $7.1 million revenue will go directly toward paying providers. At the estimated reimbursement rate of $134.51 per session, and assuming users average 4.3 sessions each (based on data from existing youth programs), the fund can support about 12,000 adults per year. Given that an estimated 2.3 million adult Coloradans have behavioral health needs, the budget will likely be stretched tight, which is why the state is strictly limiting the benefit to six sessions per person.

Where This Bill Stands

SB26-008 is currently Dead. The latest official action came on 04/02/2026: Senate Committee on Health & Human Services Postpone Indefinitely.

That means the bill is no longer advancing this session. In practice, measures that are postponed indefinitely or otherwise declared lost generally stay dead unless they are reintroduced in a future session.