Aponté & Busam is a public affairs consulting firm providing high caliber services to a variety of clients in the health care, education, nonprofit and business arenas. Founded in 1994, Aponté & Busam has extensive experience delivering exceptional service and securing legislative and regulatory results for our clients. The firm’s mission is to partner with clients in order to deliver on individual government and public affairs agendas.
Aponté & Busam has a proven track record of success including legislative victories, relationship building with elected officials and advocacy training for clients, as well as media relations and campaign management. The firm represents a wide variety of clients and specializes in tailoring services to meet our clients’ public policy objectives. Aponté & Busam maintains an active partnership with the Polis Administration, State Departments and legislative leadership in order to best serve client needs.
Together the principals at Aponté and Busam have over 40 years of combined lobbying experience in Colorado, concentrated in the health care and education arenas. Below are some specific examples of our historic and recent accomplishments.
Healthcare
- Concerning health insurance coverage for a prosthetic device necessary for a covered person to engage in physical and recreational activities
- Maintaining and continuing to increase provider rates
- Established a statewide immunization registry and funding mechanism. Established reporting mechanism for schools and childcare centers to share immunization and exemption rates with the public. (Multi-year legislation)
- Protected medical provider rates in Medicaid program during the economic downturn, including minimizing cuts to key codes and defending specialty providers from additional cuts (Multi-year legislation)
- Created the Pediatric Specialty Hospital Line Item within the state budget, garnering additional state General Fund for Children’s Hospital Colorado. (2004)
- Created the Medical Home Initiative to ensure Medicaid and CHP+ patients have access to timely and consistent care from a main primary care provider. (2007)
- Mandated private health insurance coverage of treatment for Autism Spectrum Disorders. (2009)
- CAMES (Colorado Association of Medical Equipment Services) – Passed an attestation business license bill protecting businesses and consumers housed in Secretary of State office.
- Worked to provide consumer protection by preserving the current out of network statute.
- Established Interstate Physician Licensure Compact allowing Colorado physicians the option of multi-state licensure (2016)
Education
- Creation of Colorado READ (Reading to Ensure Academic Development) to identify and support young students with literacy challenges that their success in school.
- Coalition member supporting extension of childcare tax credit to assist low income families with childcare expenses (2017)
- Established Interstate Physician Licensure Compact allowing Colorado physicians the option of multi-state licensure (2016)
- Led the development and implementation of an allocation formula for distributing state investment in Colorado’s public higher education system. This new methodology ensures that scarce state dollars are invested in resident enrollment and institutional successes (completions and retention), as well as ensure continued access to higher education across the state for all Coloradans.
- Established greater transparency and accountability for Colorado’s public higher education system with regards to meeting the state’s master plan goals for higher education.
Other Key Accomplishments
- Creation of the “Equal Pay for Equal Work Act” in order to implement measures to prevent pay disparities
- For the purposes of addressing discriminatory or unfair employment practices pursuant to Colorado’s anti-discrimination laws, the bill enacts the “Protecting Opportunities and Workers’ Rights (POWR) Act”
- Established the budget stabilization factor to insure a budgetary place header and vehicle to reverse and store a portion of $1 billion cut from K12 education during the Great Recession of 2009.
- Creation and renewal of the Emily Keyes, John W. Buckner Organ & Tissue Donation Awareness Fund to encourage Coloradoans to participate in the potential life-saving act of becoming an organ and tissue donor.
- Ongoing legislation and policy development to maximize the work of nonprofits in the state of Colorado at the State and Federal level.
- CIADA (Colorado Independent Automobile Dealers Association) – worked with the auto insurance industry to assure titles were clearly defined for consumer protection from purchasing a car with an unknown problem.
- Prohibited predatory lending activity by pay day lenders where actions trapped thousands of Coloradoans into disabling cycles of debt.
- C N A (Colorado Nonprofit Association) – Ongoing legislation, policy development to maximize the work of nonprofits in the State of Colorado at the state and federal level.
- In response to Colorado’s growing housing crisis CCAT (Counties and Commissioners Acting Together) supported the work of a bipartisan group who took bold action to pass bills to address affordability and access to housing in the 2019 legislature. Taken together, these bills represent upwards of $156 million in housing investments over the next three years and the most substantial attention to housing needs in Colorado in decades.