Michael Bennet, John Hickenlooper petition on to primary ballot

This is a selfish column. The legislature is about to hurt my disabled son.

My son, Chance, has Down syndrome and a few years ago would have been labeled “retarded.” Then “developmentally delayed.” Now the hypersensitive prefer “intellectually disabled.”

Whatever the term is this week, the reality hasn’t changed.

This 21-year-old man cannot consistently count to five, can’t read and can’t write his own name. He needs constant supervision for choking risks. He still needs help toileting. And that’s just the start.

Medicaid was designed for people like him, our most vulnerable. And I am grateful for it.

In between passing laws barring misgendering and expanding tax credits to buy electric bicycles, the state legislature plans to cut in half the Medicaid support Chance, and people like him, receive.

This is the funding he requires to live. So yeah, this one’s personal.

Blowing up Medicaid

Not many years ago, the following sentence would be unimaginable. Medicaid spending is now a larger percentage of our state budget than education spending.

So, if Medicaid is the top priority, why are they cutting Chance’s life support by 50%?

Because, since 2009 Colorado’s population grew about 20%. Medicaid enrollment grew 200%. That’s not a demographic shift. That’s a policy choice.

Either that or every single person who has moved to Colorado is severely handicapped.

What else could explain the explosion of Medicaid enrollment?

Or maybe, just maybe, the state has been encouraging people who are not handicapped to enroll into Medicaid. Maybe they’ve been encouraging able-people to swell the ranks, which (and who could have predicted this) means less for the truly needy.

During COVID the federal government put our great-grandchildren-to-be into debt and printed money out of nowhere to shower it on to the states. Colorado had an orgy of free money.

Now, it was clear from the get-go this temporary emergency money from D.C. wasn’t permanent; it was, how to put it, temporary. Responsible states used it for short-term purposes like emergency services, unemployment payments, etc.

Other less responsible states (I’m looking at you, Colorado) used the windfall to get healthy people addicted to wealth-transfer entitlement programs, guaranteeing a painful hangover when the Feds stopped the benevolence.

A more cynical person (obviously not me) might think they knew exactly what would happen if they grew Medicaid enrollment to obscene levels. When the temporary gusher of free money stopped, it would cause massive budget shortfalls.

Exploiting the handicapped

What gets people to say yes to new taxes? Seeing our most vulnerable hurt because the rich don’t pay their share, TABOR is mean, or Trump sucks (I wonder if they’re planning any tax elections this year? Nah.).

In other words, use people like my son as a political prop to raise taxes. These legislators exploit the severely handicapped as human shields to hide their inability to set budget priorities.

Their “Cover All Coloradans” program to give illegal immigrants Medicaid benefits wasn’t supposed to cost much. Just $14.7 million taken from folks like Chance. It’s now pushing $105 million. That’s a 611% miss.

Funny thing happens when you give away other people’s money. They come over borders to take it.

Blame Joe Biden for opening the floodgates to tens of millions of illegal immigrants. Blame our legislators for tempting them to relocate here for the free goodies. But just don’t be surprised by the oldest political ploy on the books — “the most vulnerable will hurt if we don’t raise taxes!”

In other words, our leaders’ decisions are hateful, not accidental. They knew this would happen. They planned on it.

I’ll find ways to keep Chance living with me, fed and clothed after these easily avoidable cuts are made. But other families will not have the means to keep their loved one at home.

With half the money needed to hire caretakers, therapies, food, transportation, rent and supplies, families will be forced to forfeit their own children to an institution or group home.

Basically, these cuts will force parents to give their vulnerable adult children to the state.

My son will lose half the help he needs to live.

But don’t worry. The state will still find plenty of money for people who never needed it in the first place.

Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.