EDITORIAL: Trump Medicaid cuts would be devastating, affecting all in Colorado

Don’t be fooled by false Medicaid narratives and empty tropes being promoted by the Trump administration — and fewer and fewer Congressional Republicans every day.

Elon Musk and other members of the Trump administration continue to promote false claims that the Medicaid rolls are choked with lazy people who won’t get jobs.

The reality of Medicaid is that either you, or someone you know, receives critical Medicaid benefits.

Medicaid was created to provide healthcare to people who suffer disabilities that prevent them from working. It provides medical care to people who virtually, and sometimes literally, have nothing.

In Colorado, Medicaid provides healthcare to people who work for wages so low they can’t afford even the leanest of health insurance policies, and, often, their employers don’t even offer them.

And in Colorado, where a stunning 1.17 million residents qualify for and use Medicaid, 65% of those recipients are already working. The reality of Colorado’s Health First Program, the name for Medicaid here, requires that a single person applying for benefits must make less than $20,800 a year. There’s some wiggle room for people with children of certain ages, but the rule, essentially, is that a family of four must have a family income under $45,600 a year to qualify for benefits.

These working poor Colorado residents live all over the state, and especially in rural Colorado — including rural communities where conservative Republicans run the show.

Not long after President Donald Trump was sworn into office, congressional Republicans identified about $880 million in “possible” cuts to the national Medicaid budget, about 10% of total Medicaid spending.

The reality of the needs for and benefits of Medicaid have prompted Republicans in Colorado, and across the nation, to warn fellow GOP leaders in Congress that they will not support a bill that proposes cuts to Medicaid, as GOP leaders mapped out earlier in the year. Newly elected Rep. Jeff Hurd, R-Grand Junction, signed a letter with 11 other GOP members of the House saying they will not back a budget bill with cuts to Medicaid.

Gov. Jared Polis, Aurora Rep. Jason Crow, state Treasurer Dave Young and many others have been consistent, and adamant, that a federal budget cut of around $900 billion that would roll downhill to Colorado. It would be catastrophic to the state economy, the health and welfare of hundreds of thousands of state residents, to the entire health care system, and especially to hospitals, clinics and programs in rural Colorado.

Here’s what to consider if you think Medicaid cuts won’t affect you. 

Kim Bimstefer, Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, pointed out this week in a meeting with the Sentinel that huge numbers of Medicaid recipients are elderly residents, and that two-thirds of all patients living in nursing homes pay for that life-saving care with Medicaid benefits.

With the cost of assisted living pushing far past $120,000 a year, tens of thousands of nursing home residents would be unable to afford such care without Medicaid. Many would become homeless and face certain death. Even if the state worked to accommodate the fiscal disaster, the cost of nursing home care for those without Medicaid would skyrocket.

The same thing would happen to hospitals across the state, and especially in rural areas, where hospitals already eke out a tenuous existence.

Ending Medicaid for hundreds of thousands of people in the state would end just about all their preventative care. Rather than Medicaid recipients costing the system a sensible charge for doctor office visits, these patients would have to resort to emergency room care, at a huge cost that, under state and federal law, would have to be absorbed by health and hospital systems, said Lt. Gov. Dianne Primavera.

“It would be disastrous,” she said, pointing out that hospitals would be forced to pass the cost onto paying customers, which would result in big hikes in health insurance premiums across Colorado.

Proposed cuts would decimate a wide range of live-saving care for hundreds of thousands of Colorado residents, jeopardize the state’s network of nursing homes and assisted living facilities, disrupt or even destroy rural hospitals and health care, and raise the cost of medical care for everyone.

Polis was right last week in admonishing Republicans from states that would suffer just as much or more and who stand quiet as the Trump administration pursues Medicaid cuts. 

We agree with Polis, who said he backs the idea of a leaner, more efficient government, and reducing any and all legitimate wasteful spending.

“But this simply is not the area to cut,” Polis said.

It’s not enough for Colorado residents to just wince as Republicans march ahead with their dangerous plan. Reach out to friends and family in communities where GOP leaders have yet to offer the same realistic sensibility as Hurd.

Colorado GOP reps Lauren Boebert, Jeff Crank and Gabe Evans have yet to commit to the same logical position as Hurd.

Trump and congressional GOP leaders need to hear from their voters and supporters who understand this has nothing to do with partisan politics and only ensures the health and wellbeing of 94 million Americans, as well as protecting the wellbeing of the nation’s healthcare system. 

In the absence of real universal healthcare, a critical benefit that only the United States, among wealthy nations, withholds from itself, solid and solvent Medicaid and Medicare systems are the best this nation can do.