| Last year, Jeff Crank and Gabe Evans cast decisive votes to greenlight historic health care cuts, gutting more than $1 billion a year in Medicaid funding for Colorado hospitals.
Nearly one year later, CPR reports that “nine Colorado hospitals could face cuts to services, or even closure” as a result of Crank and Evans’ reckless votes.
 According to the analysis, UCHealth Grandview Hospital in Crank’s district and North Colorado Medical Center and Platte Valley Medical Center in Evans’ district are all at risk of cuts or closure – leaving patients and health care professionals scrambling for solutions.
The kicker? Crank and Evans have both defended the reckless cuts, showing no remorse as hospitals and Coloradans pay the price.
DCCC Spokesperson Lindsay Reilly:
“Jeff Crank and Gabe Evans could not care less about Coloradans. Crank and Evans have made it clear that their loyalty lies with their party bosses and billionaire donors, and Colorado families will remember the pain they’ve caused in November.”
Read more…
CPR News: Hospitals — and patients — brace for fallout from federal health funding cuts as new report paints a bleak outlook
- As hospitals in Colorado and around the country brace for impacts of federal funding cuts made last year by Republicans in Washington, D.C., patients are on edge as well.
- Montoya said she’s gotten excellent care at Denver Health, which Medicaid has covered. The hospital landed on a new report of at-risk hospitals. Federal cuts to the program, combined with state cuts coming due to Colorado’s own billion-dollar-plus budget shortfall, do add stress.
- “This is a big stressor. And stress when you have autoimmune disease is your biggest enemy,” she said.
- Nine Colorado hospitals could face cuts to services, or even closure, due to the health cuts made last year. That’s according to an analysis from D.C.-based nonprofit consumer group Public Citizen.
- “Medicaid cuts pose a pretty substantial risk to hospitals. Particularly those who have both had a high percentage of Medicaid patients as well as hospitals that have already been kind of struggling financially,” said Eileen O’Grady, a researcher with Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division, in an interview with CPR.
- “This is not meant to be predictive. It’s descriptive of the risks,’” O’Grady said. “They will have to make really tough decisions about how to stay solvent, whether it’s cutting back on services, whether it’s laying off workers, and all of those things affect all patients who use those hospitals, not just people on Medicaid.”
- But the cuts “will be devastating to organizations that are serving a lot of patients who are on Medicaid,” she said.
- After more than 40 years without a hospital closure in the state – an anomaly compared with other states – in the last two years, Colorado has seen facility closures, service line eliminations, and workforce reductions.
- But the federal budget bill dramatically reduces the amount of federal funding available for health care. In Colorado, CHA estimates that it will mean a $10.4 billion decrease of federal funding to the state, due to cuts to a key hospital provider fee by 2032.
- “That reduction will be devastating to Colorado, as the state budget has no ability to backfill that amount. The entire health care system will feel the impact,” Welch said. She noted hospitals are working hard to limit the worst impacts, but warned, “It will get worse as more provisions of H.R. 1 take effect.”
- Republicans, like 8th district Rep. Gabe Evans, have defended the cuts and pointed a finger back at state Democrats, saying they’ve mismanaged Medicaid funds, something they deny.
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