# Colorado Hates its Disabled Citizens

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/freedom-unaffiliated-6377441/colorado-hates-its-disabled-citizens
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/freedom-unaffiliated-6377441/colorado-hates-its-disabled-citizens.md
Podcast: [Freedom Unaffiliated](https://stenobird.com/podcast/freedom-unaffiliated-6377441)
Published: 2026-04-16T18:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://thinkfreedom.org
Audio file: https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/cba7ad75-a7b8-4918-90d6-54e481b3f063.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/freedom-unaffiliated-6377441/episodes/colorado-hates-its-disabled-citizens
Duration seconds: 356

## Resource

This is a selfish column. The legislature is about to hurt my disabled son. My son, Chance, has Down syndrome and a few years ago would have been labeled “retarded.” Then “developmentally delayed.” Now the hypersensitive prefer “intellectually disabled.” Whatever the term is this week, the reality hasn’t changed. This 21-year-old man cannot consistently count to five, can’t read and can’t write his own name. He needs constant supervision for choking risks. He still needs help toileting. And that’s just the start. Medicaid was designed for people like him, our most vulnerable. And I am grateful for it. In between passing laws barring misgendering and expanding tax credits to buy electric bicycles, the state legislature plans to cut in half the Medicaid support Chance, and people like him, receive. This is the funding he requires to live. So yeah, this one’s personal. Blowing up Medicaid Not many years ago, the following sentence would be unimaginable. Medicaid spending is now a larger percentage of our state budget than education spending. So, if Medicaid is the top priority, why are they cutting Chance’s life support by 50%? Because, since 2009 Colorado’s population grew about 20%. Medicaid enrollment grew 200%. That’s not a demographic shift. That’s a policy choice. Either that or every single person who has moved to Colorado is severely handicapped. What else could explain the explosion of Medicaid enrollment ? Or maybe, just maybe, the state has been encouraging people who are not handicapped to enroll into Medicaid. Maybe they’ve been encouraging able-people to swell the ranks, which (and who could have predicted this) means less for the truly needy. During COVID the federal government put our great-grandchildren-to-be into debt and printed money out of nowhere to…

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