January 12, 2026 12:59 PM UTC

The Health Care Vote that Will Haunt Gabe Evans and Friends

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• by: Colorado Pols

In case you missed the news last week, 17 House Republicans crossed the aisle to vote with all Democrats on a measure that seeks to expand subsidies for the Affordable Care Act for three years. Among Colorado’s House delegation, Rep. Jeff “Bread Sandwich” Hurd (R-Grand Junction) voted ‘YES’ along with all four Democrats; Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Windsor), Jeff Crank (R-Colo. Springs), and Gabe Evans (R-Ft. Lupton) voted ‘NO.’

As The Hill newspaper explains:

The House passed legislation Thursday to revive and extend expired ObamaCare tax credits in a bipartisan vote that is boosting hopes of centrist Republicans for a bipartisan deal to revive the tax credits.

The tally, 230 to 196, highlighted the tenuous grip Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has over his restive GOP conference…[Pols emphasis]

…Negotiators from both parties in the Senate, who revived compromise talks in response to centrist Republicans forcing the vote in the House, have said they are close to a deal to bring back the tax credits, which expired at the end of 2025, and extend the open enrollment period.

We don’t need to tell you that voting against making health care premiums more affordable for Coloradans is a bad look. This is a particularly problematic vote considering that HR 1834 passed with the support of 17 Republicans — including one of their own colleagues from Colorado; Boebert, Crank, and Evans can’t try to explain this away as merely opposing a Democratic piece of legislation. A bipartisan group of lawmakers are pushing to get this across the finish line in the Senate, and while President Trump threatening a veto if they succeed, there will be a very bright light shining on Republicans who opposed legislation to significantly lower health care costs for their constituents.

Americans are absolutely paying attention. As The Associated Press noted in late December, poll results indicate that Americans are more worried about healthcare costs than they have been in a long time:

Julia Dvorak is worried her 83-year-old mother’s emergency room trips for seizures are depleting her retirement savings and will soon force her to go on Medicaid.

At the same time, Dvorak, who’s 56 and suffers from a chronic knee condition that keeps her on state and federal assistance, expects her own health costs to go up next year.

It’s the kind of financial squeeze that has made health care a growing concern for Americans, according to a new AP-NORC poll that asked people to share their top priorities for the government to address in 2026.

The uptick on health care was much sharper than on other commonly mentioned issues. It comes after President Donald Trump’s Republican administration reduced spending on Medicaid, a safety net program for poor people, and decided to end coronavirus pandemic-era subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, essentially guaranteeing that millions of people will see a steep rise in costs in early 2026. [Pols emphasis]

For voters in the 45-to 59-year-old age range, health care is now the single most important issue for them in 2026. The television ads write themselves.

So what do you do if you are Gabe Evans — the most vulnerable Republican incumbent in the country? You try this lame response:

As CNBC reported in December, Gabe’s narrative is nonsense:

Some health policy experts say the scope of the fraud isn’t as severe as lawmakers have suggested, and that it’d be better to improve the ACA’s security measures rather than cut enhanced subsidies altogether.

“It really is trivial, the scope of fraud,” said Michael Gusmano, a professor of health policy at Lehigh University. “It’s just a scare tactic to justify the reduction of the federal government’s role in subsidizing health insurance,” he said.

He pointed to one finding as an example: In 2023, more than 58,000 Social Security numbers of deceased people also received a premium subsidy, according to the GAO. That amounted to just 0.4% of all Social Security numbers that received a premium tax credit that year, the GAO found…

…Even for those who think the fraud is substantial, a reasonable response would be to make reforms to the system to reduce waste rather than allow the enhanced subsidies to expire, Gusmano said.

“The idea that you get down to zero in terms of any kind of problem with any system, if we applied that to any program, public or private, they’d all have to shut down,” he said. “That’s a deeply problematic standard.” [Pols emphasis]

By this logic, the best way to eliminate any sort of fraud is to just eliminate the program in question altogether.

Social Security fraud? Get rid of Social Security benefits!

Farm subsidy fraud? Screw the farmers!

In essence, Evans is hoping that voters in CO-08 are willing to accept health care premium increases of more than 100% in order to prevent a relatively-minor amount of fraud. Good luck convincing voters to eat that bowl of shit.

Boebert, Crank, and Evans are actively working against efforts to reduce health care costs for Coloradans. THAT is the message that is going to matter to voters in a few months.

As the old saying goes: If you’re explaining, you’re losing.