By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice
Colorado is staring down a $1 billion budget hole. Disabled kids are losing healthcare. Dental benefits are getting capped at $750 a year. Two Democrats who helped create and fund Cover All Coloradans are now asking voters to send them to Congress.
Shannon Bird stepped away from the statehouse to run full-time. That sets up a primary between Bird and Rep. Manny Rutinel in Colorado’s 8th Congressional District, with Republican incumbent Gabe Evans waiting in November.
It started with HB22-1289 in 2022, opening Medicaid-style coverage to children and pregnant women who otherwise met eligibility but didn’t qualify because of their immigration status. Bird voted yes.
The early estimate was $14.7 million for the fiscal year, tied to an expected enrollment of about 3,700 people—at least that was the projection at the time.
But it was seven times that with almost 28,000 enrollees. Costs followed. The program is at $104.5 million this year, with projections reaching $127.4 million next year.
“The fiscal note missed pretty badly,” said Eric Kurtz, a chief legislative budget analyst, in testimony before the Joint Budget Committee earlier this month.
The program received full funding in 2025 through SB25-206, the state budget bill co-sponsored by Bird. Rutinel voted for it.
The RNC didn’t wait long to connect the dots.
“Manny Rutinel and Shannon Bird have bankrupted Colorado by wasting hundreds of millions of tax dollars handing out freebies to illegal immigrants,” said RNC spokesman Zach Kraft. “Democrats have once again proven they will always put illegal immigrants first. Meanwhile, Republican Congressman Gabe Evans has been hard at work for Coloradans delivering a secure border, a historic drop in crime, and a growing economy.”
The program now sits at the center of Colorado’s budget crisis. The Joint Budget Committee has already cut long-term care benefits for 49 disabled children enrolled in the program and capped dental benefits.
On March 18, the governor’s own budget director came to the JBC asking for more cuts.
Mark Ferrandino, who heads the Governor’s Office of State Planning and Budgeting, told the committee the administration plans to freeze new child enrollment on July 1. Then comes a redesign, he said—cutting per-capita costs in half and potentially saving $20 to $40 million.
“We are talking about kids who were brought here through no fault of their own,” said Rep. Kyle Brown. After listening to the list of proposed cuts, Brown boiled down what he saw as Colorado’s new priorities: “Prisons—that’s all.”
Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican on the Joint Budget Committee, looked at it differently.
“From my perspective, we should be looking at those things that don’t pull down a federal match,” Kirkmeyer said. “It doesn’t make sense to me that we cut over $210 million out of our Medicaid providers and out of Medicaid for children that would’ve pulled down another $250 to $260 million of federal funds.”
Cover All Coloradans is funded almost entirely with state dollars for children—no federal match.
Cover All Coloradans isn’t the only price tag.
Across the Denver metro area, the total also surged. The total is $356 million. That’s what city agencies, school districts and hospitals have spent on migrant services since December 2022, according to a November 2024 analysis by the Common Sense Institute. It works out to about $7,900 per migrant—roughly 8% of the city’s 2025 budget.
Questions coming out of Washington in Sept. 2025 turned into a formal records request. Gov. Jared Polis and HCPF Director Kim Bimestefer received a letter from Rep. James Comer seeking details on Colorado’s Medicaid spending on illegal immigrants.
The committee framed the issue in terms of “waste, fraud and abuse” and what it described as an expansion of benefits for illegal aliens.
The Comer inquiry wasn’t the only federal attention on Colorado’s Medicaid spending.
Then came the audit. Released in February 2026, the HHS Office of Inspector General found at least $77.8 million in improper payments tied to autism therapy services—and flagged another $207.4 million as potentially improper.
Governor Polis addressed the questions in a January interview with CBS News anchor Tony Dokoupil.
“Every state is going to have some misuse of funds,” Polis said. “Every dollar of wasted taxpayer money is a real problem that we should take seriously.”
Dokoupil pressed further. “So it’s a real problem, but not a big problem?”
A seat created after the 2020 census is already turning into one of Colorado’s main political fights. Evans flipped the 8th in 2024 after Democrats held it for just one term. Now comes what could be one of the state’s most competitive races.
Both Bird and Rutinel were asked for comment. Neither responded.
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