Don't mistake the limited-purpose US Government for your state government. Colorado does quite a bit, from healthcare to environment to policing. And so does the US, for those subjects it has jurisdiction, and has been doing so for hundreds of years.
Not sure. The US Government has accrued a couple hundred years of unbroken political agitprop directed at it. From my observations, many people are comforted when anything tends to validate it, and otherwise ambivalent or oblivious to anything else. Underlying that is legal information that is inaccessible for most; the only books you can't check out of a library, a multitude of websites that never quite work. Newstainment that profits from attention does not help.
There was a study on it that made a big splash a while back. The interpreted version is that policy is made for the wealthy and special interest groups. If it happens to coincide with was the public wants, it's merely coincidence.
Don't mistake the limited-purpose US Government for your state government. Colorado does quite a bit, from healthcare to environment to policing. And so does the US, for those subjects it has jurisdiction, and has been doing so for hundreds of years.