A new report on the House Republican American Health Care Act finds the plan would leave $15 billion in Medicaid costs for Colorado to pay, end the Obamacare Medicaid expansion and likely leave more than 420,000 residents without health care coverage.

The bleak findings of the progressive Center on Budget and Policy Priorities are shocking but not surprising. The organization seeks to move budget debate toward policies that reduce poverty and inequality — and the Republican plan has been critiqued widely for slashing program and funding cuts that would eliminate health coverage for millions of Americans — many of them children and many more of them rural elderly people who backed Trump for president.

“The cuts would be deepest precisely when need is greatest, since federal Medicaid funding would no longer increase automatically when public health emergencies like the opioid epidemic or a natural disaster increase state costs,” the report on Colorado reads. “The [plan] also wouldn’t take into account demographic changes, such as the rise in seniors’ Medicaid costs as they age, meaning states would face even larger cuts over the long run. The share of Colorado seniors who are 85 or older will increase by 42 percent between 2025 and 2035.”

Colorado lawmakers are presently locked in an epic battle to secure some $3 billion in funding to update the state’s crumbling and insufficient transportation infrastructure. The entire state budget this year adds up to $26.8 billion. It’s nearly inconceivable that the state would move $15 billion into health coverage for low-income residents beginning in 2020 when federal support under the GOP plan would dry up. State Republicans already routinely lament expanding public health care costs.

The report comes as President Trump and Capitol Hill Republicans have signaled their intention to revive the healthcare overhaul they rolled out and then aborted last month in the wake of wide opposition.

— john@coloradostatesman.com