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Local outlets continue to bash the Colorado Republican for jeopardizing health care for nearly 1 in 4 of his own constituents
Gabe Evans’ plan to gut health care for hundreds of thousands of Coloradans “would rattle the foundations of Colorado’s health care system,” according to the latest wave of local news coverage on Evans’ vote to advance legislation to drastically cut Medicaid.
Coloradans are pleading with Evans to protect access to health care, including a family doctor who treats low-income families just down the street from Evans’ home in rural Colorado. Evans, meanwhile, is celebrating a bill that would kick millions of Americans off their health care.
In case you missed it…
Colorado Times Recorder: Family Doc in Evans’ Hometown Asks Him Not to Cut Medicaid: ‘Patients Like Mine Will Suffer’
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Dr. Hughes works at a nonprofit health center in Fort Lupton, a small rural town in Weld County that is also home to Evans. At her clinic, which is just down the road from Evans’ home, Hughes’ patients are mostly low-income families, typically with both parents working one or more jobs to provide for their kids.
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“Making families jump through even more hoops to get the health care they need is likely to lead them to being kicked off of Medicaid. When this happens, more patients like mine will suffer.”
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“This may put these hospitals in a position of having to decide, ‘Do we close this service line?’ like say ‘Do we close labor and delivery?’ which cuts off access to those important services in that community and or in severe cases do we have to close permanently altogether right and often a rural hospital has, you know, it’s the largest if not the second or third largest employer in a rural community and offers high-paying jobs.”
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“It’s really a domino effect that we might see, both to the patients, the hospital, and to the local economies in these rural and frontier communities.”
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The full press conference is available online here.
Colorado Public Radio: GOP Medicaid proposal would cost thousands of Coloradans their health coverage, roll back ‘federal support for health care’
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The budget bill making its way through the Republican-led Congress would cause as many as 200,000 Coloradans to lose Medicaid health coverage.
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It would slash about a billion dollars over a decade for Colorado, KFF reported.
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If the bill passed, it would rattle the foundations of Colorado’s health care system, because Medicaid funding is such a key element, for hospitals, community health centers and clinics and, ultimately, patients.
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Rural hospitals, as well as urban ones, could face program cutbacks or even closure, if deep Medicaid cuts are passed. Patients, who receive benefits because of things like a disability, could potentially lose coverage as well.
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State officials have said Colorado, which is already strapped for funds, wouldn’t have the money to replace that funding.
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“Cuts of $625 billion will force states to make tough choices: maintain current spending on Medicaid by raising taxes or reducing spending on other programs; or cut Medicaid spending by covering fewer people, offering fewer benefits, or paying providers less,” its authors wrote.
Colorado Pols: Gabe Evans Celebrates ‘Only’ 7.6 Million Losing Medicaid Coverage
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For freshman Rep. Gabe Evans of Colorado, supporting this legislation against the lopsided wishes of his constituents is a political risk that defies easy comprehension.
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Evans made a new assertion that is very likely to come back to haunt him… “The real number is 7.6 [million] people – made up of illegal immigrants, able-bodied people who don’t want to work, and people who are illegible recipients.”
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This could be the first time we have ever seen a politician in a competitive seat excited to explain how they ‘only’ intend to kick 7.6 million people off the Medicaid rolls. There is absolutely no way that among those millions of people, every single person will fall into one of Evans’ undesirable categories.
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Studies have shown that people with disabilities frequently get snared by work requirements intended to apply to “able-bodied adults.” There will be hundreds, even thousands of people in Evans’ district who will make him look not only dishonest, but heartless in the extreme as they suffer under these new requirements.
Axios Denver: U.S. Rep. Evans decries “fear-mongering” despite looming Medicaid cuts
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Threat level: “This would be the biggest rollback in federal support for health care ever,” KFF executive vice president for health policy Larry Levitt tells us.
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Health care advocates and medical professionals have warned for months that cuts to Medicaid could lead to people losing coverage from the federal safety net program, hurting vulnerable Coloradans.
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Expanding work requirements could mean between 95,000 to 108,000 Coloradans aged 19 to 55 lose coverage, per an analysis from the Urban Institute.
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A variety of nonprofits lambasted the Republicans’ decision to reduce Medicaid spending, noting its potentially ruinous impact on people, especially working-class Colorado residents.
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“Ripping it away would increase homelessness and force families into crisis,” Disability Law Colorado executive director Andrew Romanoff said in a statement this week.
Colorado Pols: Apparently Everyone Is Wrong Except For Gabe Evans
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Kim Bimestefer — Executive Director the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF), which administers Medicaid — says the work requirements will cost more than they will save…
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One in four Coloradans get their health coverage through Medicaid. HCPF estimates half of them are already working.
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If they must verify their work status every month, Bimestefer says, it will mean a new $57 million administrative burden based on other state’s experience.
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And the most important point, which is that squeezing Medicaid funds even if nominally targeted at “waste” will have an impact on everyone who uses health care services, including unquestionably qualified Medicaid patients and even the privately insured:
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“If they cut monies we cannot backfill. We have to begin to cut some way shape or form across Medicaid, and that will have an impact to families, to providers, to our economy and all Coloradans as those costs need to shift that aren’t covered,” she said.
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