This week, state Sen. Judy Amabile hosted Democratic city and state leaders at a townhall to discuss the potential impacts of the new federal law, the “Big Beautiful Bill,” on Boulder. The law shifts more Medicaid and SNAP (food stamps) costs to states and localities, and limits who can receive those benefits to help pay for a series of tax cuts.
About 25,000 people in Boulder County receive SNAP benefits and over 40,000 people are on Medicaid, roughly 7.5% and 12% of the population, respectively. Nearly 40% percent of those on Medicaid are under age 20.
“There is going to be suffering, and there are going to be people who are going to experience homelessness, hunger, untreated illness, and on and on,” Boulder City Councilmember Mark Wallach said at the July 21 townhall. “We’re dealing with an administration that has a relentless focus on inflicting cruelty upon those at the bottom end of the economic scale.”
The City of Boulder, Boulder County and the state of Colorado are all already facing financial constraints. The city is dealing with flat sales tax projections, the expiration of federal Covid relief funds and uncertainty over allocated federal support. It has already implemented a hiring freeze amid ongoing budget pressures. Boulder County is also grappling with the end of ARPA funding and flattening revenues, which are worsening service funding gaps. At the state level, officials cite constitutional spending limits under TABOR and rising Medicaid costs as major budget pressures.
Local and state leaders say budgets cannot absorb the additional costs imposed by the law without cutting other services.
“These costs shifts from the Republican Congress cannot be fielded by counties without reducing healthcare and food security services,” County Commissioner Ashley Stolzmann told Boulder Reporting Lab.
Amabile said state lawmakers will need across-the-board cuts to “spread the pain around” and cover about $1 billion in new annual costs from lost tax revenue and higher Medicaid and SNAP expenses. Budget adjustments will likely start in 2026, with more cuts as social program reductions phase in through 2030.
Many elements of the law are not set to take effect until 2027. Here are a few areas Boulder Reporting Lab will be watching as the effects become clearer.
Healthcare for low-income residents (and likely the rest of the market)
The law cuts Medicaid coverage to millions of people, most significantly through a new work requirement. Thousands of people in Boulder County are expected to lose coverage. Estimates vary widely, in part because recipients will be required to repeatedly prove their employment to keep their health care. Administrative barriers may cause additional people to lose coverage, even if they are employed. Research shows work requirements do not increase employment.
Premiums on the individual marketplace are also expected to rise by an average of 28% in Colorado in response to these cuts, according to the Colorado Department of Insurance.
The law could also jeopardize county safety-net providers like Clinica Family Health by imposing new out-of-pocket costs on Medicaid enrollees. The provision is likely to increase uncompensated care costs for the county safety-net hospitals, and Clinica was already struggling before President Trump was elected.
“I’ve led Clinica as CEO for the past 11 years, and in all my years of work I’ve never experienced a period as challenging as the one we now face,” Simon Smith, president and CEO of Clinica, told Boulder Reporting Lab last fall.
Access to food
Food assistance already has work requirements, but the bill expands them, resulting in fewer people receiving SNAP. Previously, adults over 54 and those with children under 18 were exempt from work requirements. Under the new rules, only adults over 64 and parents with kids under 14 are exempt.
The change would impose new work requirements on about 25% of SNAP recipients, roughly 6,000 Boulder County residents. The law also cuts about $186 billion from SNAP over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The combined effect will result in hundreds of Boulder County residents losing food assistance.
“I knew, as a teacher, exactly when kids were hungry that day because they couldn’t concentrate,” CU Regent Elliot Hood said at the townhall. “It breaks my heart as a former teacher to know that there’s an estimated million kids in this country whose families are going to lose food assistance from this bill.”
Broader consequences
The law shifts more costs onto states and creates new administrative burdens shared by the state and counties, which will result in cuts to other services at every level of government.
“I think everybody is at risk to some extent. Even with flat revenues, the budget is in effect contracting,” Wallach said of potential cuts to city programs. “I don’t think there are too many sacred cows at this point.” City council will begin drafting its 2026 budget in September and he said that now is not the time for new projects.
“I don’t know that we’re going to have a new South Boulder rec center this year,” he said, referring to the aging facility in need of replacement, a project that would cost millions.
Amabile said the tax cuts and added costs for states in the law are “going to hurt all of us eventually.”
“We have to make cuts to the things we care about, like K-12 education, energy, environmental policy, transportation and infrastructure, roads and bridges. All of those things are going to take a hit,” she said.
Many of those cuts will likely come first from transportation funds, an area the state already reduced significantly this year to close a $1.2 billion budget shortfall.
“I’m sorry, I know it’s not popular,” Amabile said. “But if I have to choose between feeding a hungry kid or building another bike path I’m going to pick feeding a hungry kid, every single time.”
Considering the current and future funding landscape, staff pet projects like the Core Arterial Network, and the civic center renovation seem particularly frivolous and unnecessary. Just because staff in key departments have been shepherding these projects through the bureaucracy for years or even decades shouldn’t mean they are sacred cows. I’m with Judy. If we can’t even cover the basics anymore, new bike paths should be off the table. Also the Elevate Boulder (guaranteed basic income) pilot project should go away. This has zero possibility of ever scaling, and is only serving a very tiny fraction of the people who are very low income and need assistance. This whole predicament also goes to show just how useless, and even counterproductive, the BVCP can actually be when it puts these big projects in motion and dedicates millions in staff time over many years to things that may not even be needed or be the best use of limited resources in the end.