Medicaid will cover 2.3 million fewer people in fiscal 2027 because of the work requirement in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services projects, a law Jeff Hurd, who represents Colorado's 3rd District, helped enact on July 3, 2025. Within the expansion group the rule covers, a disabled adult is exempt, but under the CMS regulation, one whom the state's own records do not already show has to prove the disability.
Both 2025 budget resolutions turned on Hurd's vote, and both set an $880 billion savings floor for the House committee that writes Medicaid law; the law Hurd voted for on July 3, 2025 trims $12.4 billion from Colorado's federal Medicaid funding across ten years. In 2025, 18,300 people with disabilities in Hurd's district were on Medicaid.
Jeff Hurd's Votes on Medicaid Work Rules and Disability Services
- Hurd Voted for Medicaid Work Rules That CMS Projects Will Cut Enrollment by 2.3 Million in Fiscal 2027. Jeff Hurd's yes votes came at both ends of H.R. 1's House path: May 22, 2025, when it passed 215 to 214, and July 3, 2025, when the final law passed 218 to 214. Adults the rule covers must log 80 hours of work or another qualifying activity each month unless the state signs off on an exemption, one of which is for a person "with a physical, intellectual or developmental disability that significantly impairs their ability to perform 1 or more activities of daily living." Federal Medicaid officials put the toll in their own rulemaking: "enrollment would be reduced by 2.3 million individuals in FY 2027."
- Hurd's Deciding Budget Votes Told Medicaid's House Committee to Save $880 Billion, Threatening Home Care for Disabled Coloradans. The two budget tallies, 217 to 215 in February 2025 and 216 to 214 in April 2025, each had Hurd on the winning side, and each would have deadlocked, killing the resolution, if he had crossed over. The text directed the committee that oversees Medicaid to "reduce the deficit by not less than $880,000,000,000" over ten years. The services most exposed are home and community-based care, the Medicaid help that keeps people with disabilities in their own homes and out of institutions; they are "largely an optional Medicaid benefit," and the Bipartisan Policy Center says that makes them "more vulnerable to reductions during periods of state or federal budget constraints."
What Jeff Hurd's Votes Cost Coloradans With Disabilities
- 18,300 people with disabilities in Colorado's 3rd District depend on the Medicaid money the law cuts. Of the 194,500 people on Medicaid in Colorado's 3rd District in 2025, KFF counts 18,300 who qualify because of a disability. Their doctor visits, medication, therapy and help at home run partly on federal Medicaid dollars, and Colorado's share of those dollars falls by $12.4 billion over ten years.
- 59,500 expansion adults in Colorado's 3rd District must document work or an exemption. Expansion adults are the group the work rule targets, and KFF puts their number in Colorado's 3rd District at 59,500 for 2025. Under the CMS regulation, anyone among them whose disability the state does not already have on file must prove it or start reporting hours, and the agency expects the paperwork to push millions off coverage nationally.
- 77,912 disabled workers in Colorado draw Social Security, whose costs the law raises by $168.6 billion. Social Security Administration statistics for December 2024 list 77,912 disabled-worker beneficiaries statewide and 15,641 inside the 3rd District. The program's chief actuary found the law piles $168.6 billion onto its costs over 2025 to 2034, and the chief actuary dates the combined trust funds' depletion to the first quarter of 2034, two quarters sooner than before.
Frequently Asked Questions About Jeff Hurd on Disability rights
What is Jeff Hurd's record on disability rights under Trump?
Jeff Hurd voted for H.R. 1, a law whose Medicaid work rule, as CMS's regulation applies it, leaves disabled adults in the expansion group whom state records do not show as exempt to prove it, and which is projected to shrink enrollment by 2.3 million in 2027, and his votes settled both 2025 budget resolutions that ordered the Medicaid committee to find $880 billion. For Colorado, the federal Medicaid loss is $12.4 billion over ten years.
Do Coloradans with disabilities have to prove they are exempt from the Medicaid work rules Jeff Hurd voted for?
Under the CMS regulation carrying out the law Jeff Hurd voted for, anyone the state cannot confirm as exempt from its own data must prove it. That law exempts expansion adults who are "medically frail", a category covering blind or disabled people and anyone with a mental disorder that is disabling, along with those whose disability significantly limits daily activities; otherwise they must log 80 hours monthly in jobs, classes, training or volunteer work under the same law. The rule covers the 59,500 expansion adults in Colorado's 3rd District.
What could the Medicaid cuts Jeff Hurd voted for cost disabled Coloradans who need home care?
Jeff Hurd's deciding budget votes set the $880 billion target, and the law he voted for in July 2025 makes cuts that experts expect to "slow or reverse recent HCBS expansion efforts" in the states, the Bipartisan Policy Center reports, meaning fewer slots for home and community-based care. Colorado already had 2,749 people on waiting lists for that care in 2026, according to KFF.
Last updated: 2026-10-27