July 16, 2026 09:51 AM UTC

Yes You Did Cut Medicaid, Gabe Evans

• 0 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Here was the headline in the Colorado Sun from one year ago, when America’s Most Vulnerable Incumbent™ Rep. Gabe Evans was testing messages in defense of his deciding vote to pass the Republican reconciliation budget bill, which will go down in history with a note of cruel irony as the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

Here is what Evans said then:

Evans said the bill does not cut Medicaid: “We’re not cutting Medicaid,” he said. “Medicaid spending goes up under this.”

…Evans appears to be the only Colorado representative claiming that the law does not cut Medicaid — and he’s made the claim repeatedly. But while federal spending on Medicaid will increase each year over the next decade, the amount each year will now be far lower than previously set under prior law.

In fact, the law will cut federal spending on Medicaid by about $1 trillion over the next 10 years, according to the most recent analysis from the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan, independent agency that is part of the legislative branch and tasked with providing lawmakers with economic analysis. The CBO analysis shows that 11.8 million people across the country will lose health insurance by 2034 because of the law.

Keep this in mind as the Denver Post’s Meg Wingerter reports today:

A national nurses union flagged 12 Colorado hospitals at particular risk from upcoming federal cuts — medical facilities that mostly have avoided prior attention to their finances…

All hospitals will face challenges as patients fall off Medicaid because they couldn’t navigate work requirements or the need to prove their eligibility at least twice a year, Johnston said. Those facilities that were struggling even before the cuts under H.R. 1, known as the “big beautiful bill,” will be even more likely to have to raise prices or cut services, he said.

“This bill is going to have a major impact, and it’s going to cause a lot of problems,” he said. [Pols emphasis]

As this story explains, it’s not just the Medicaid cuts that Evans voted for impacting the solvency of hospitals in Colorado identified in this report, including large hospitals in Brighton and Greeley. The reductions in health insurance premium subsidies in the same legislation will result in additional uninsured patients showing up requiring care–although state legislation to partially offset those reductions will help. And yes, the OBBB included some separate funding mechanisms for rural hospitals to mitigate the harm from the front-end reductions. But these offsets are not nearly enough, and it’s the patients facing new hurdles to care who suffer first.

None of these hospitals like news reports that suggest they are in poor fiscal health, and we’ve seen providers push back on previous reports that forecast possible closures. Although the biggest worry is that some hospitals may be forced to close outright, it’s the paring back of available services and the costs passed on to everyone else who uses these facilities that everyone should be worried about first. These reductions affect everyone who needs care regardless of how they pay for it.

Gabe Evans–along with “The Jeffs” Hurd and Crank, and Lauren Boebert–voted to cut Medicaid and hurt your local hospital. Each of their votes was “the deciding vote.”

Although the OBBB was written to delay much of the pain in the bill until after November, the consequences are increasingly plain.

And Gabe Evans’ denials…increasingly disgraceful.