Jared Polis finally did math. He did it four years too late, and timed it for the least amount of political accountability, but at least the governor of progressive Colorado finally did his homework.\
Even if Polis handed it in late, as the Free Beacon noted yesterday:
Colorado Democrats and immigration activists cheered after Gov. Jared Polis (D.) signed a signature 2022 health care law providing coverage to children and "pregnant persons" living in the United States illegally. Four years later, Polis, now a lame duck, is calling to gut the Cover All Coloradans program in his final budget proposal in an attempt to address the state's spiraling Medicaid costs, and left-wing groups aren't happy.
Polis released his budget on the eve of the midterm elections—one day after the legally mandated deadline to do so—and proposed $600 million in state Medicaid cuts. He called Medicaid's growth "unsustainable" and told reporters it was on track to "crowd out everything else, including education."
Buried in the proposal is a section calling to "replace Cover All Coloradans" by redirecting funds to a separate program, the Primary Care Fund, which offers financial assistance to low-income, uninsured residents for health care. Illegal immigrant children are eligible for that benefit but would lose the comprehensive insurance plan provided by Cover All Coloradans. A fact sheet notes that Polis aims "to end Cover All Coloradans coverage for children," but "coverage for pregnant and postpartum adults would continue."
"Pregnant and postpartum persons"? Polis finally did his math homework. Maybe he'll catch up to biology at some point, too. If Polis thought a woke sop to transgender activists would soften this blow, he's in for a rude awakening:
Liberal groups widely panned Polis for proposing reductions to Colorado's Medicaid program. The Colorado Center on Law and Policy accused him of proposing "draconian budget cuts," while Colorado Consumer Health Initiative deputy director Adam Fox said Polis "is now proposing more cuts to lifesaving programs rather than supporting a viable solution."
What "viable solution" would that be? Draconian tax hikes, almost certainly, which is exactly what critics of these expansions predicted would follow these policies. Democrat governors such as Polis ignored those warnings, and some had already insisted on expanding Medicaid access to illegal aliens even before Joe Biden won in 2020. Polis signed this bill in the middle of the Biden Border Crisis as millions of illegal aliens swarmed into the U.S. Not only did that vastly escalate costs in those states, but policies like Cover All Coloradans also act as incentive boosts for illegal immigration.
All the while, economists warned that the costs of covering illegal aliens in Medicaid would bankrupt states. Progressives countered that the expansion would save money by allowing illegal aliens to seek cheaper treatment in clinics rather than clog emergency rooms with health issues that could have been resolved less expensively. That's the same logic that Democrats argued with ObamaCare, and the progressive math there turned out to be entirely wrong as well. As Polis discovered in Colorado, the preventive-care math doesn't work in Medicaid, either.
Colorado isn't the only state that has started to do math, either. Just about every jurisdiction that offered Medicaid to adult illegal aliens has started to close out those programs, according to HealthInsurance.org:
The following states use state funds to provide Medicaid or Medicaid-like coverage to certain adults who reside in the state and meet income eligibility guidelines, regardless of their immigration status:5
- California6 Since January 2026, undocumented immigrants age 19 and older have no longer been able to enroll, although existing enrollees have been able to keep their coverage (but without non-emergency dental benefits as of July 2026). Starting in July 2027, undocumented immigrant adults age 19-59 who aren't pregnant will have to pay $30/month to keep their Medi-Cal coverage.7
- District of Columbia (Coverage is provided via the Health Care Alliance program, which is technically separate from Medicaid. Enrollment was closed to adults age 26 and older starting in October 2025,8 but pregnant women can still enroll.)9
- Illinois (Only for those 65 and older). The Health Benefits for Immigrant Adults Program (HBIA) previously covered younger adults, aged 42 to 64. But coverage for that population ended on June 30, 2025.10 The Health Benefits for Immigrant Seniors (HBIS) program continues to provide coverage for those 65 and older,11 and covers almost 9,000 Illinois residents.12 But new enrollment in HBIS was paused in 2023,13 and continues to be closed.14
- New York (Only for those 65 and older)15
- Oregon16
- Washington (Enrollment is closed)17
Oregon declared in September that it would continue to enroll "people of any age or immigration status" into its Oregon Health Plan, its Medicaid offering. It does also note, however, that aliens with normal status in the U.S. would be moved to a separate plan called Healthier Oregon along with most other Oregonians. That would make it easier to change Medicaid policies in the future.
These changes seem even more notable considering the push from Democrats to adopt Medicare for All after their big midterm win. The same math applies to that form of single-payer plan as it does to Medicaid, although it would absorb Medicaid and move the costs to the federal government. That would make it far more difficult to get accountability over costs of covering illegal aliens, and would at the same time amplify those incentives for illegal immigration. One has to suspect that progressives understand that math all too well, even while blue-state Dem governors are dealing with the more acute math of illegal-alien coverage through state programs.
Polis is pretty late to the game. The rest of us understood the math at the time, and we had better get our slide rules and abacuses ready for the next two years.