May 28, 2025 08:41 AM UTC

Jeff Hurd's Heartbreaking Excuses For Slashing Medicaid

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• by: Colorado Pols

Following last week’s passage in the U.S. House by a single vote of 215-214 of the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” to slash funding for Medicaid and SNAP food assistance in order to pay for tax cuts to benefit the wealthiest Americans, GOP freshman Rep. Jeff Hurd of Grand Junction, whose district is home to the highest percentage of Medicaid patients in the state, came home to face the hard questions about the legislation he voted for after paying what turned out to be toothless lip service to protecting Medicaid funding.

After running on a platform of “expanding rural health care access,” explaining to the Grand Junction Sentinel’s Nathan Deal why Hurd just voted to substantially reduce health care access in rural Colorado required some contortion on the “Bread Sandwich’s” part. It began with Hurd saying it was Donald Trump himself who closed the deal:

Sentinel: Ahead of the vote, Trump held a meeting with House Republicans encouraging them to get behind the bill. What was your experience with this meeting?

Hurd: I was in the meeting with the president and he was clear that this is an important part of the agenda that we ran on and that we need to get this bill across the finish line. It was something that we’ve been working on for many weeks and months in the House, including in committees. Two of those committees are committees I was assigned to. This is the culmination in the House of all that hard work and effort over the first part of my service in Congress. It’s something he told us was important to him and it’s clear from my perspective as well that we need to get this bill passed and onto the Senate.

And so the freshman Republican who had briefly impressed with his willingness to call out Trump’s many mistakes and excesses since retaking office now says he was swayed by Trump’s “Art of the Deal”–and not just that, but this bill breaking one of Hurd’s biggest campaign promises is the “culmination” of his own service in Congress?

What the hell just happened?

Sentinel: You represent a district where 26.3% of people are enrolled in Medicaid and you ran on protecting Medicaid. The bipartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that changes to Medicaid funding as well as new work requirements could see roughly $700 billion in Medicaid funding cuts, impacting roughly 8.6 million people nationwide. Does this concern you?

Hurd: What this bill does is strengthen Medicaid for those who need it most. It’s essential for me that we preserve this critical safety net for rural Coloradans and I think this bill takes steps in the right direction by making sure that the dollars we spend on Medicaid are for those who need it the most, like pregnant moms, children, those are disabled, senior citizens who are dual eligible with Medicare, to make sure that the dollars we have for those most vulnerable groups is available. Work requirements is a way to make sure that able-bodied adults are not utilizing resources that would better be used for those who need it the most…

Forget all about “expanding” health care access, even though that’s what Hurd promised voters he would do on the campaign trail last year. Now the game is reducing access for millions of people in order to “preserve” Medicaid for those who “need it most.” Even if you agree with what Hurd says now, you have to concede that this represents a major departure from what Hurd campaigned on. Hurd campaigned on expanding rural health care access, and what he just voted for does the opposite. It’s that simple.

And again, the effect of millions of people losing their health coverage, no matter what presumptions you make about their worthiness, goes far beyond those individuals. Health care providers already on the verge of going under could be pushed into insolvency by these reductions, and for this Hurd simply has no answers:

Sentinel: Some rural hospitals around the country have either closed or face closure because they receive less pay from insurance companies than larger-city hospitals. Are you concerned that these changes to Medicaid funding could further strain America’s rural hospitals?

Hurd: Obviously, this is something that we keep a close eye on always. [Pols emphasis] Medicaid is an essential part of the rural health care delivery system that we have in the 3rd Congressional District…

Yes, it is. And despite the pleading from stakeholders across his sprawling district more dependent on Medicaid funding than any other congressional district in the state, Jeff Hurd joined his vulnerable fellow freshman Rep. Gabe Evans and 213 other colleagues in casting their decisive vote to throw millions of Americans off the Medicaid rolls. The reason Hurd’s answers feel so inadequate is simple: there are no good answers to justify what Republicans just voted for. As Hurd conceded from the beginning of this interview, all of this is happening because Donald Trump and the Republican trifecta in Washington of which Hurd is a member wanted it to happen.

Because Evans is considered the more politically vulnerable of the two and indeed the whole country, last week’s vote is probably more damaging to Evans than Hurd. But for those of us who entertained the notion that Hurd might back up his stated principles with votes at moments when they might have made a difference, like last week’s one-vote passage of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” Hurd’s may be the most bitter betrayal.

When it mattered most, Jeff Hurd sold Western Colorado out.