Medicare will pay an extra $8.8 billion for drugs under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Jeff Hurd, the Republican representing Colorado's 3rd District, voted for on July 3, 2025; the same law is the first to take Medicare away from people who already qualified for it. Hurd's May 22, 2025 vote for the House version was one it could not have passed without.
The law also freezes, through September 30, 2034, most of two rules: one easing enrollment in the Medicare Savings Programs, which help low-income seniors with premiums, and a broader one easing Medicaid enrollment. Hurd cast a deciding vote in April 2025 for the budget resolution behind the law's tax cuts, which reduce revenue to Medicare's hospital trust fund. Colorado counted 1,036,586 Medicare enrollees in 2024.
Jeff Hurd's Votes on Medicare and What They Cost Colorado Seniors
- Hurd Voted for a Law That Adds $8.8 Billion to Medicare's Drug Costs and Ends Coverage for Some Enrollees. The final H.R. 1 cleared the House 218 to 214 on July 3, 2025, with Jeff Hurd's yes among the 218. Its section 71201 cuts off Medicare for lawfully present immigrants without green cards, a group that includes refugees and asylees, and section 71203 widens the exemption that keeps orphan drugs, those approved for rare diseases, out of Medicare price negotiation. "This is the first time that Congress has eliminated Medicare coverage" for people who were legally eligible, KFF says, and the Congressional Budget Office expects "0.1 million Medicare beneficiaries losing their Medicare coverage as of 2034," with coverage for people found during the grace period ending on February 1, 2027 in the schedule CMS has proposed. The Congressional Budget Office prices the orphan-drug change at an additional $8.8 billion in Medicare spending.
- Hurd's Deciding House Vote Advanced a Freeze on Medicaid Enrollment Rules That the Final Law Kept, in May 2025. The House version of H.R. 1 squeaked through 215 to 214 on May 22, 2025, one member answering present, a tally that would have flipped to failure without Hurd. The final law kept that version's moratorium on most of two rules, one governing enrollment in the Medicare Savings Programs, which cover premiums and cost sharing for low-income seniors, and a broader one governing Medicaid enrollment. Under the final law, holding both rules back is "collectively estimated to reduce federal Medicaid spending by $122 billion," KFF reports, and the Congressional Budget Office's earlier analysis, made before the Senate's changes, found that delay would mean 1.3 million fewer people on Medicare with Medicaid help in 2034.
- Hurd's Deciding Budget Vote Cleared the Tax Cuts That Cost Medicare's Hospital Fund Revenue, in April 2025. Hurd's April 10, 2025 yes on the final H.Con.Res. 14 came on a 216 to 214 tally that would have tied, and failed, had he switched. The resolution cleared the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee to "increase the deficit by not more than $4,500,000,000,000". Those changes cut the income tax on Social Security benefits, a tax that is one source of Medicare hospital funding. The Medicare trustees now project the hospital trust fund will run out one quarter earlier, in the second quarter of 2033; KFF reports the trustees pin the shift primarily on that revenue coming in "lower than previously projected due to changes in the 2025 budget reconciliation bill."
What Jeff Hurd's Medicare Votes Mean for Colorado and Its 3rd District
- 1,036,586 Coloradans on Medicare depend on a hospital fund the law drains sooner. KFF counts 1,036,586 Coloradans enrolled in Medicare in 2024, 496,054 of them, or 47.9%, in traditional Medicare. They are the patients whose hospital stays the trust fund pays for until it runs short in 2033, and who pay for rare-disease and cancer drugs that the wider orphan-drug exemption keeps out of negotiation.
- The 3rd District's 20,500 older Medicaid enrollees count on the help with Medicare bills the law froze. Colorado's 3rd District had 20,500 seniors on Medicaid in 2025, KFF figures show. For low-income seniors, Medicaid covers Medicare premiums and cost sharing, the same help one of the enrollment rules frozen by the law was meant to extend to more people.
Frequently Asked Questions About Jeff Hurd on Medicare
What is Jeff Hurd's record on Medicare under Trump?
Jeff Hurd cast yes votes on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in May and again in July 2025, a law that takes Medicare from some lawfully present immigrants, puts two Medicaid enrollment rules, including one for poor seniors' premium help, on ice, and spends $8.8 billion more on Medicare drugs through a wider orphan-drug exemption. His April 2025 budget vote, which decided the outcome, cleared the tax cuts that leave Medicare's hospital trust fund with less revenue. In Colorado, more than a million people are on Medicare.
Who loses Medicare under the law Jeff Hurd voted for, and when?
Refugees, asylees, humanitarian parolees, people with Temporary Protected Status and several other groups of lawfully present immigrants are the ones cut off by the law Jeff Hurd voted for on July 3, 2025, according to the Center for Medicare Advocacy, which explains how they lose Medicare eligibility. Social Security planned first notices, sent from August through November 2026, for people flagged in the grace period, whose coverage CMS's proposed schedule ends on February 1, 2027.
What could the premium-help freeze Jeff Hurd voted for cost a low-income Colorado senior?
A senior who loses help with premiums because of the rules the law Jeff Hurd voted for put on hold could end up "paying $185 per month in Medicare premiums, or about 20% of income," KFF estimates. In Colorado's 3rd District, 20,500 seniors were enrolled in Medicaid in 2025, the program that pays those premiums for low-income seniors.
Does the law Jeff Hurd voted for raise what Medicare spends on cancer drugs?
It delays savings: the orphan-drug change in the law Jeff Hurd voted for is expected to put off Medicare negotiation over the cancer drugs Keytruda and Opdivo "by at least one year," KFF says, and in 2023 "Medicare and beneficiaries spent $5.6 billion on Keytruda and $2.0 billion on Opdivo."
Last updated: 2026-10-27