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9News: Evans defends Medicaid cuts amid protests, avoids specifics on district impact
- Republican Congressman Gabe Evans faced protests and pointed questions Thursday in Denver as he defended federal Medicaid cuts that could affect more than 200,000 recipients in his congressional district, but avoided providing specific numbers about how many constituents would lose coverage.
- The congressman has been avoiding town halls in his own district.
- According to the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF), Medicaid covers 214,218 people in Evans’ Congressional District 8.
- After his news conference ended, Evans said that he had a “hard out” at 10 a.m. It was 9:54 a.m., but he started to go up the steps to go inside the Capitol.
- 9NEWS followed up the steps, asking, “How does taking people off Medicaid and into emergency rooms for uncompensated care help medical providers in your district?”
Colorado Newsline: Republicans defend spending bill, which could strip Medicaid from 200K Coloradans
- Speaking over heckling chants from a nearby crowd of protesters, two of Colorado’s top Republicans stood outside the state Capitol on Thursday … [at] a press conference that leaned heavily on a series of misleading claims about Medicaid and immigration.
- The vast majority of the funding cuts and insurance coverage losses projected to result from the bill will fall on citizens and lawful residents.
- Demonstrators chanted and held signs urging Evans to hold in-person town hall events to hear from his constituents, something he has so far refused to do.
- Evans… claimed flatly that “Medicaid is not being cut,” eliciting howls of derision from the protesters.
- The bill’s $625 billion in total cuts to Medicaid spending over the next decade would be the largest reduction in the program’s 50-year history. Nationwide, a total of 10.3 million people would lose access to Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
- Asked repeatedly how many of his constituents, nearly 1 in 3 of whom are enrolled in Medicaid, would become uninsured under the GOP plan, Evans did not answer … Statewide, Colorado Medicaid enrollment would shrink by between 11% and 18%, according to KFF.
- “Do you not know the number?” asked a reporter. “I’m telling you the number right now,” said Evans, who did not say a number.
- The benefits of the GOP plan’s tax cuts are heavily skewed towards people with higher incomes.
Fox 31 Denver: Evans, Boebert tout ‘Big, Beautiful, Bill’ amid boos from Coloradans
- Angry Colorado residents came out to voice their frustrations with the representatives who voted to pass the measure.
- The bill will have unintended consequences for other Coloradans, increasing premiums for people outside of Medicaid and disenrolling hundreds of thousands of people already in the system.
Colorado Public Radio: As GOP members of Congress tout ‘Big Beautiful’ budget bill in Denver event, opponents provide noisy backdrop
- Protesters, focused primarily on the planned Medicaid cuts, booed through virtually the entire event. One held a sign reading “Gabe, 29% of us need Medicaid to Live,” referring to the percentage of residents in his district who rely on the program, which provides healthcare to low-income Americans.
- During the comments, the crowd chanted short phrases like “shame on you” and “midterms,” an electoral threat against a Representative who won his seat by fewer than 2,500 votes.
- “We are protesting against the bill that cuts Medicaid and food assistance, takes food out of hungry kids’ mouths,” said Ernistine Garcia, who lives in Evans district. “Not only that, they want to take it and give a massive tax break to the billionaires, the upper one percent. And so it’s like killing us so that they could have more.”
- Some critics of the bill have described it as Robin Hood in reverse, taking from the poor and giving to the rich, in the form of tax cuts for the highest income brackets.
- The state’s estimate is that between 140,000 to 230,000 people in the state would lose healthcare coverage due to the bill’s changes, equaling about 11 to 18 percent of its current Medicaid participants.
- Colorado could also lose hundreds of millions of dollars in food assistance funding for the program known as SNAP. The bill requires states to pick up more of the tab for food aid, but lawmakers said the state doesn’t have the capacity to replace the lost funding.
Denver Post: Protesters heckle and chant as Reps. Gabe Evans, Lauren Boebert tout Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ bill
- Against an unrelenting chorus of heckling, jeering and chanting from protesters gathered at the state Capitol on Thursday, U.S. Reps. Gabe Evans and Lauren Boebert roundly praised President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget bill.
- 100 or so protesters … [held] signs reading “Where is your compassion?” and “Save Medicaid.”
- More than 100,000 Coloradans could lose their health insurance and the state would face a budget shortfall in the billions if cuts to Medicaid go forward.
Westword: Boebert, Evans Yelled at by “Furious” Constituents Over Medicaid Cuts in Big Beautiful Bill
- Boebert and Evans were drowned out by screams and boos from protesters during their Denver press conference.
- An estimated 10.3 million people would lose Medicaid coverage by 2034 under the proposed plan, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That would include sudden loses in coverage for between 140,000 and 230,000 Coloradans, impacting 11 to 18 percent of the state’s current Medicaid participants, based on state estimates.
- Nearly 30 percent of people in Evans’s 8th Congressional District are on Medicaid (tying for the second-highest percentage in the state).
- Thursday’s protesters repeated chants of “your bill kills,” “do your jobs” and “Gabe, you suck” as Evans and Boebert gave their remarks.
- Evans’s congressional district is one of the most politically competitive in the nation.
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