  Recently, strong reduction of the quasiparticle peaks and pronounced
incoherent structures have been observed in the photoemission spectra of
layered cobaltates. Surprisingly, these many-body effects are found to increase
near the band insulator regime. We explain these unexpected observations in
terms of a novel spin-polaron model for CoO_2 planes which is based on a fact
of the spin-state quasidegeneracy of Co^{3+} ions in oxides. Scattering of the
photoholes on spin-state fluctuations suppresses their coherent motion. The
observed ``peak-dip-hump'' type lineshapes are well reproduced by the theory.
