"You can go fact check this right now," Gabe Evans said in a debate last month.

So the Colorado Times Recorder did.

Evans had told voters in Colorado's 8th District that "there are actually 12,000 more people on Medicaid in August of 2026 compared to August of 2025." He pointed them to the state's own Medicaid website.

The number checks out. The state's site does show an increase of about 12,000 over that year. But the same state agency says what comes next, and Evans left that part out.

What the state actually forecasts

Colorado's Department of Health Care Policy and Financing runs Medicaid in the state. Its budget forecasts enrollment going down after this year. Its latest request, filed November 2, estimates that average enrollment will drop 3.87%, or about 48,000 people, next fiscal year. The February version the Times Recorder cited had the drop at 3.37%.

The agency also says why. The decline, it writes, "is due to the anticipated implementation of the H.R. 1 community engagement requirements and 6-month redetermination requirement," which are set to begin January 1. H.R. 1 is Trump's budget bill. Evans voted for it.

In plain words, the bill's new work rules and more frequent paperwork checks haven't started yet. Saying more people are on Medicaid today, before the cuts begin, tells you nothing about what happens after they do. It's like saying the house didn't burn down because the fire hasn't reached it yet.

The other claim that doesn't hold up

Evans used the same trick with a second line in the debate against Democrat Manny Rutinel. "Republicans added $250 billion to health care," he said. "We're just protecting that from the fraud, waste, and abuse that my opponent allows to fester in the health care system."

The Colorado Times Recorder reports that multiple fact-checkers have called that claim badly misleading. Its numbers: Republicans raised total spending over 10 years, but took $1 trillion from what Medicaid was expected to spend. Those savings come from new work and eligibility rules, the paper says, not from catching cheaters. The money helped pay for tax cuts. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 7.5 million people will lose Medicaid nationally by 2034. KFF's state breakdown of those estimates puts the law's toll in Colorado at about 150,000 more uninsured people, about 130,000 of them from the Medicaid changes.

We've caught Evans on this before. He said Medicaid spending would rise every year, that anyone suggesting otherwise was fear mongering, and that he was protecting the program for "the people who need it most." Nurses have since named 12 Colorado hospitals at risk.

The hospitals say it's real

Days before the election, two Colorado health care leaders wrote a public plea. Donna Lynne, the CEO of Denver Health and a former lieutenant governor, and Kevin Stansbury of Lincoln Health Community Hospital in Hugo published an op-ed in the Denver Post. Colorado Pols printed long sections of it.

They named no politician. But they wrote that it is "with confusion and frustration that we hear politicians who voted for these cuts tell Coloradans they do not exist."

"Some Republicans assert that Congress had not only not cut health care funding, but had actually increased it," they wrote. "That is simply not true."

Their warning was specific. Denver Health alone is preparing for an estimated $65 million yearly hit from federal actions. And they said Colorado hospitals gave $288 million in charity care in the second quarter of this year, up 117% from the same quarter in 2022.

Elected leaders can argue for spending less on health care, they wrote. "But the one thing they cannot credibly argue is that the cuts they voted for are not happening."

Voters had the last word

On Tuesday, Rutinel beat Evans and flipped the seat. Evans is still in Congress until January. The Medicaid rules he voted for start on January 1, and they will stay on the books after he leaves.

What the record shows

Gabe Evans told voters to fact-check his claim that 12,000 more Coloradans are on Medicaid than a year ago. The figure is accurate, but Colorado's own Medicaid agency forecasts a drop of about 48,000 people next fiscal year and blames the budget bill Evans voted for. KFF estimates the law will leave about 150,000 more Coloradans uninsured by 2034, and two of the state's hospital leaders say the cuts he denied are already forcing them to prepare.

Source

Evans' Misleading Claim That Medicaid Enrollment Has Increased Ignores the Massive Cuts Coming Next Year When the Law Kicks In, Colorado Times Recorder.