Two Colorado representatives at center of debate over Medicaid work requirements in nation's capital
Rep. Gabe Evans, a Republican representing Colorado's 8th Congressional District, and Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat representing Colorado's First Congressional District, sit on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid and is tasked with finding $880 billion in savings over the next 10 years.
Rep. Gabe Evans
CBS
The chair of the committee released a bill Sunday night that includes big changes to the program, including new eligibility requirements.
Recipients who are able-bodied and have no dependents would have to prove they are working, volunteering, or going to school 80 hours a month. Those who make more than 100% of the federal poverty level - or about $32,000 a year for a family of four - would be required to pay some out-of-pocket costs. States would have to verify all enrollees' eligibility twice a year, including proof of citizenship. States like Colorado, which provides Medicaid for non-citizens, would see federal funding cut by 10%. States would also have to scrub their rolls for people enrolled in multiple Medicaid programs. Republicans say more than a million people are covered in more than one state.
Evans said Medicaid will continue to grow 25% a year under the Republican plan. He says they are simply slowing the growth.
"If you are a lawful beneficiary of Medicaid, then the program is going to still continue to function and work for you and it will probably actually work better because by cutting out this fraud, waste, and abuse, our providers and the system itself will be more efficient so we can get care to the people who actually rely on it and better and faster," said Evans.
Rep. Diana DeGette
CBS
DeGette said initial analysis by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office shows more than 8 million people will lose coverage.
"It's kind of an alternative reality if Republicans are going to say, 'We're going to cut more than $700 billion from Medicaid but we're not going to cut anybody off of Medicaid.' That's not true and if they really think that, then they're lying to themselves," said DeGette. "But what's worse is that they're lying to their constituents who are going to lose their Medicaid coverage."
The Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Finance, which administers Medicaid, says the work requirements could impact nearly 380,000 Coloradans and the administrative costs could run more than $57 million.
Under the bill, any changes approved by Congress wouldn't be implemented until 2029.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
40 minutes ago
Trump moves to use the levers of presidential power to help his party in the 2026 midterms
President Donald Trump has made clear in recent weeks that he's willing to use the vast powers of his office to prevent his party from losing control of Congress in next year's midterm elections. Some of the steps Trump has taken to intervene in the election are typical, but controversial, political maneuvers taken to his trademark extremes. That includes pushing Republican lawmakers in Texas and other conservative-controlled states to redraw their legislative maps to expand the number of U.S. House seats favorable to the GOP. Others involve the direct use of official presidential power in ways that have no modern precedent, such as ordering his Department of Justice to investigate the main liberal fundraising entity, ActBlue. The department also is demanding the detailed voter files from each state in an apparent attempt to look for ineligible voters on a vast scale. And on Monday, Trump posted a falsehood-filled rant on social media pledging to lead a 'movement' to outlaw voting machines and mail balloting, the latter of which has become a mainstay of Democratic voting since Trump pushed Republicans to avoid it in 2020 — before flipping on the issue ahead of last year's presidential election. The individual actions add up to an unprecedented attempt by a sitting president to interfere in a critical election before it's even held, moves that have raised alarms among those concerned about the future of U.S. democracy. 'Those are actions that you don't see in healthy democracies,' said Ian Bassin, executive director of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan organization that has sued the Trump administration. 'Those are actions you see in authoritarian states.' Bassin noted that presidents routinely stump for their party in midterm elections and try to bolster incumbents by steering projects and support to their districts. But he said Trump's history is part of what's driving alarm about the midterms. He referenced Trump's attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which ended with a violent assault on the Capitol by his supporters. 'The one thing we know for certain from experience in 2020 is that this is a person who will use every measure and try every tactic to stay in power, regardless of the outcome of an election,' Bassin said. He noted that in 2020, Trump was checked by elected Republicans in Congress and statehouses who refused to bend the rules, along with members of his own administration and even military leaders who distanced themselves from the defeated incumbent. In his second term, the president has locked down near-total loyalty from the GOP and stacked the administration with loyalists. The incumbent president's party normally loses seats in Congress during midterm elections. That's what happened to Trump in 2018, when Democrats won enough seats to take back the House of Representatives, stymieing the president's agenda and eventually leading to his two impeachments. Trump has said he doesn't want a repeat. He also has argued that his actions are actually attempts to preserve democracy. Repeating baseless allegations of fraud, he said Monday during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that 'you can never have a real democracy with mail-in ballots.' Earlier this month, Trump said that, because he handily won Texas in the 2024 presidential election, 'we are entitled to five more seats.' Republicans currently have a three-seat margin in the House of Representatives. Trump pushed Texas Republicans to redraw their congressional map to create up to five new winnable GOP seats and is lobbying other red states, including Indiana and Missouri, to take similar steps to pad the margin even more. The Texas Legislature is likely to vote on its map on Wednesday. There's no guarantee that Trump's gambit will work, but also no legal prohibition against fiddling with maps in those states for partisan advantage. In response, California Democrats are moving forward with their own redistricting effort as a way to counter Republicans in Texas. Mid-decade map adjustments have happened before, though usually in response to court orders rather than presidents openly hoping to manufacture more seats for their party. Larry Diamond, a political scientist at Stanford University, said there's a chance the redrawing of House districts won't succeed as Trump anticipates — but could end up motivating Democratic voters. Still, Diamond said he's concerned. 'It's the overall pattern that's alarming and that the reason to do this is for pure partisan advantage,' he said of Trump's tactic. Diamond noted that in 2019 he wrote a book about a '12-step' process to turn a democracy into an autocracy, and 'the last step in the process is to rig the electoral process.' Trump has required loyalty from all levels of his administration and demanded that the Department of Justice follow his directives. One of those was to probe ActBlue, an online portal that raised hundreds of millions of dollars in small-dollar donations for Democratic candidates over two decades. The site was so successful that Republicans launched a similar venture, called WinRed. Trump, notably, did not order a federal probe into WinRed. Trump's appointees at the Department of Justice also have demanded voting data from at least 19 states, as Trump continues to insist he actually won the 2020 election and proposed a special prosecutor to investigate that year's vote tally. Much as he did before winning the 2024 election, Trump has baselessly implied that Democrats may rig upcoming vote counts against him. In at least two of those states, California and Minnesota, the DOJ followed up with election officials last week, threatening legal action if they didn't hand over their voter registration lists by this Thursday, according to letters shared with The Associated Press. Neither state — both controlled by Democrats — has responded publicly. Trump's threat this week to end mail voting and do away with voting machines is just his latest attempt to sway how elections are run. An executive order he signed earlier this year sought documented proof of citizenship to register to vote, among other changes, though much of it has been blocked by courts. In the days leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol to reverse his 2020 loss, Trump's allies proposed having the military seize voting machines to investigate purported fraud, even though Trump's own attorney general said there was no evidence of significant wrongdoing. The Constitution says states and Congress, rather than the president, set the rules for elections, so it's unclear what Trump could do to make his promises a reality. But election officials saw them as an obvious sign of his 2026 interests. 'Let's see this for what it really is: An attempt to change voting going into the midterms because he's afraid the Republicans will lose,' wrote Ann Jacobs, the Democratic chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, on X. Derek Muller, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, said the idea of seizing voting machines in 2020 was a sign of how few levers the president has to influence an election, not of his power. Under the U.S. Constitution, elections are run by states and only Congress can 'alter' the procedures — and, even then, for federal races alone. 'It's a deeply decentralized system,' Muller said. There are fewer legal constraints on presidential powers, such as criminal investigations and deployment of law enforcement and military resources, Muller noted. But, he added, people usually err in forecasting election catastrophes. He noted that in 2022 and 2024, a wide range of experts braced for violence, disruption and attempts to overturn losses by Trump allies, and no serious threats materialized. 'One lesson I've learned in decades of doing this is people are often preparing for the last election rather than what actually happens in the new ones,' Muller said.
an hour ago
Sen. Lindsey Graham says Trump ready to ‘crush' Russian economy if Putin avoids talks with Zelenskyy
WASHINGTON -- Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said Tuesday that he believes President Donald Trump is prepared to 'crush' Russia's economy with a new wave of sanctions if Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the coming weeks. Graham, who spoke with Trump on Tuesday morning, has pushed the president for months to support his sweeping bipartisan sanctions bill that would impose steep tariffs on countries that are fueling Russia's invasion of Ukraine by buying its oil, gas, uranium, and other exports. The legislation has the backing of 85 senators, but Trump has yet to endorse it. Republican leaders have said they won't move without him. 'If we don't have this thing moving in the right direction by the time we get back, then I think that plan B needs to kick in,' Graham said in a phone interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday. The Senate, now away from Washington for the August recess, is scheduled to return in September. Graham's call with Trump came less than 24 hours after high-stakes meetings at the White House with Zelenskyy and several European leaders. Trump and the leaders emerged from those talks sounding optimistic, with the expectation being that a Putin and Zelenskyy sit-down will happen soon. Still, Trump's comments to Graham, one of his top congressional allies, mark the latest sign that pressure is building — not just on Putin, but on Trump as well. 'Trump believes that if Putin doesn't do his part, that he's going to have to crush his economy. Because you've got to mean what you say,' Graham told reporters in South Carolina on Tuesday. As Congress prepares to return to session in early September, the next few weeks could become a defining test of whether lawmakers and international allies are prepared to act on their own if Trump doesn't follow through. Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the lead Democrat pushing the bill with Graham, says there is a 'lot of reason for skepticism and doubt' after the meetings with Trump, especially because Putin has not made any direct promises. He said the Russian leader has an incentive to play 'rope-a-dope' with Trump. 'The only way to bring Putin to the table is to show strength,' Blumenthal told the AP this week. 'What Putin understands is force and pressure.' Still, Republicans have shown little willingness to override Trump in his second term. They abruptly halted work on the sanctions bill before the August recess after Trump said the legislation may not be needed. Asked Tuesday in a phone interview whether the sanctions bill should be brought up even without Trump's support, Graham said, 'the best way to do it is with him.' 'There will come a point where if it's clear that Putin is not going to entertain peace, that President Trump will have to back up what he said he would do,' Graham said. 'And the best way to do it is have congressional blessing.' The legislation would impose tariffs of up to 500% on countries such as China and India, which together account for roughly 70% of Russia's energy trade. The framework has the support of many European leaders. Many of those same European leaders left the White House on Monday with a more hopeful tone. Zelenskyy called the meeting with Trump 'an important step toward ending this war.' German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that his expectations 'were not just met, they were exceeded.' Still, little concrete progress was visible on the main obstacles to peace. That deadlock likely favors Putin, whose forces continue to make steady, if slow, progress on the ground in Ukraine. French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters after talks at the White House that Trump believes a deal with Putin is possible. But he said sanctions remain on the table if the process fails.
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
Trump is fighting something in D.C., but it isn't crime
When the man says no, the agent continues. 'Yeah, Trump's got all federal agencies coming together, seven days, and going out trying to stop the violent crime, all kind of stuff,' the agent says. He continues: 'Smoking, drinking in public, right, it can't happen.' I'm a Detroit-born, Boston transplant at heart, but I've worked as a journalist in Washington for nearly two decades. Though I've built my career here working only for Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up Understandably, I have some very strong and very personal views about the president's Advertisement Most obviously, sending armed federal agents and the National Guard to patrol the streets of the nation's capital bears all the hallmarks of a But from my local vantage point, I see even more layers to this dangerous gambit. Advertisement First, let's dispel the idea that Trump's effort is driven in any way by a true desire to make D.C. a better place to live and visit. Trump points to anecdotal evidence, like the If Trump really wanted to fight crime here, there are many things he could do that would actually help, starting with telling his fellow Republicans in Congress to release No, Trump's crime crusade is about something else. Aside from satisfying his Trump loves a shock-and-awe-style attack on perceived domestic enemies. Look at Trump's immigration crackdown, complete with images of suspected immigrants being detained and held in brutally inhumane facilities with nicknames like 'Alligator Alcatraz.' It's a show put on by the former reality show host and the latest episode is brought to you from Democratic-controlled cities he has long railed against. Crime fighting isn't the point. Cruelty is. Advertisement It's gut wrenching to see it happening in a place so filled with history, culture, and joy. It's a richness that comes not just from transplants like me or its world-renown cultural institutions (which are They, and I, want safe, well-policed, and well-resourced communities. Not a federal takeover. And I'm exhausted by the crime hot takes from people who couldn't identify Ironically, even if you thought soldiers should be sent here, they are also being sent from Ohio, the only state that Even Trump's claim that Advertisement Trump is selling a dangerous lie about the city I've made a life in. My D.C. is one of Kimberly Atkins Stohr is a columnist for the Globe. She may be reached at
