Protesters heckle as Evans, Boebert tout ‘big, beautiful’ bill

POLITICS

Worries about impacts to Medicaid drove much of disenchantment

U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans speaks during a press conference addressing President Trump’s budget bill outside the Colorado Capitol in Denver on Thursday. ANDY CROSS — THE DENVER POST

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By John Aguilar and Seth Klamann

denverpost.com

Against an unrelenting chorus of heckling, jeering and chanting from protesters gathered at the state Capitol on Thursday, U.S. Reps. Gabe Evans and Lauren Boebert roundly praised President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget bill that both Republicans voted for in the U.S. House last week.

“There is a lot of good in this bill, and, unfortunately, that good is being lost because of a lot of the blatant fearmongering that is occurring around this bill,” said Evans, a freshman representing Colorado’s 8th Congressional District. “The truth is this one big, beautiful bill delivers the resources to protect our country, to protect our border, to get violent criminals out of our community.”

There was little sympathy for the congressman’s words among the 100 or so protesters who turned out for the news conference at the bottom of the building’s west steps. Signs reading “Where is your compassion?” and “Save Medicaid” were held high in the air.

A steady drone of cat-calling and chanting from the crowd, which was kept at bay by several police officers standing in a line, kept up without pause throughout the hour-long event.

“I just think the whole premise of this is based on greed,” said Patty Gysin, a protester from Lakewood.

Lawmakers in the House narrowly passed the president’s wide-ranging budget blueprint, formally known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, in an early-morning vote May 22, pushing the bill forward on a 215-214 vote. It has moved on to the Senate, with long negotiations ahead.

Central to the package is the GOP’s commitment to extending some $4.5 trillion in tax breaks they engineered during Trump’s first term in 2017, while temporarily adding new ones he campaigned on last year, including no taxes on tips, overtime pay, car loan interest and more.

To make up for some of the lost tax revenue, Republicans focused on changes to Medicaid and the food stamps program, largely by imposing work requirements on many of those receiving benefits. There’s also a massive rollback of green energy tax breaks.

The package tacks on $350 billion in new spending, with about $150 billion going to the Pentagon and the rest for Trump’s mass deportation and border security agenda.

All told, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates 8.6 million fewer people would have health care coverage and 3 million fewer people a month would have SNAP food-stamps benefits with the proposed changes. According to preliminary estimates from state agencies and nonprofit groups issued this month, more than 100,000 Coloradans could lose their health insurance, and the state would face a budget shortfall in the billions if cuts to Medicaid go forward.

In Evans’ own district, which sits mostly in portions of Adams and Weld counties, with a sliver in Larimer County, the Center for American Progress Action Fund projected that proposed cuts to Medicaid could knock 43,000 people out of the program — a nearly 25% reduction.

But Evans touted different numbers during Thursday’s news conference, saying the budget bill “protects Medicaid by getting 1.4 million illegal immigrants off of the Medicaid rolls, by getting 1.2 million people who are not eligible for Medicaid benefits off of the Medicaid rolls and preserving the program for the people who need it most.”

“We are putting guardrails around the program to make sure that it is there for the people who need it most,” he said. “And Medicaid spending will go up every single year under the Republican plan. Medicaid is not being cut.”

The Congressional Budget Office, however, says the bill will cut Medicaid by nearly $700 billion.

Boebert touted the fact that under Trump’s bill, “Medicaid will no longer fund transgender surgeries for children or adults.”

“This is a huge win for our children. There is no need for your tax dollars to go to transgender surgeries,” she said. “And let me be really clear that these tax dollars are so precious and they should be focused on helping Coloradans with real health care needs.”

At a news conference after the one held by the two Republican lawmakers, local Democratic officials, plus three health care providers and a patient, all warned of the impact the Medicaid cuts would have.

Dr. Steven Federico, a pediatrician and Denver Health’s chief government and community affairs officer, cited an even higher number of Coloradans projected to lose health coverage — more than 180,000 — if the bill goes through.