Costs, Cuts, and Healthcare Confusion

In the winding marble halls of the U.S. Capitol stands a towering bronze statue of Dr. Florence Sabin.

A physician and medical scientist hailing from Central City, Colorado, Sabin was a pioneer. She became the first woman to hold a full professorship at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the first woman elected to the National Academy of Sciences. At the Rockefeller Institute, she led groundbreaking research into the immune system and tuberculosis.

But some of her most important contributions came after she “retired” and returned home to Colorado.

In the 1940s, Sabin traveled across Colorado examining our public health system and pushing lawmakers to improve it. Her advocacy led to what’s become known as the “Sabin Health Laws,” which strengthened and modernized public health in Colorado.

Her work was as relevant then as it is now.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released new data showing that Colorado’s kindergarten vaccination rate for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) has fallen to roughly 88 percent. That’s down more than 3 percentage points from the 2019-20 school year.

Colorado now ranks among the states with the lowest reported MMR vaccination coverage in the country.

And it’s not just MMR. Colorado has also seen declines in kindergarten vaccination coverage for diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (DTaP), polio, and hepatitis B.

At the same time, exemptions are rising. The share of Colorado kindergartners with a vaccine exemption increased from 4.2 percent in 2024-25 to 4.7 percent in 2025-26, above the national rate of 4.2 percent. Nearly all of Colorado’s exemptions were non-medical.

That should concern all of us.

As a former scientist and a father, the issue of healthcare is deeply personal. I know the anxiety parents feel when they drop their kids off at day care or school.

We all want the same thing: to keep our children healthy and safe. That means following the evidence and giving parents clear, reliable information they can trust.

Instead, we’ve seen growing confusion surrounding childhood vaccines.

Earlier this year, President Trump issued an executive order directing federal health agencies to overhaul longstanding childhood vaccine recommendations and encouraging states to reconsider school immunization requirements. The order is being challenged in court.

We’ve called on the president to rescind that order, and have introduced the Family Vaccine Protection Act to protect access to vaccines and strengthen scientific standards around federal vaccine recommendations.

This week, I traveled to Kids First Health Care in Commerce City to sit down with parents, Pediatric care providers, and representatives from community health clinics to talk about these challenges. With kids heading back to school, we must make sure families have reliable information and access to the care they need to keep their children healthy.

But vaccines weren’t the only concern we heard.

Families and healthcare providers are also confronting major changes to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act enacted in last year’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” The law, which was crafted by MAGA Republicans, cut more than $1 trillion from the healthcare system to pay for tax breaks for billionaires. As a result, up to 15 million Americans, including 240,000 Coloradans could lose their coverage.

The effects could extend far beyond just coverage. A recent report identified nine Colorado hospitals as particularly vulnerable to service reductions or, in more severe circumstances, closure because of their financial condition and reliance on Medicaid and other government programs.

We’ve consistently fought attacks on Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act that will increase costs, reduce coverage, and make it harder for Coloradans to get care. And we’ll keep working to make health care more affordable and accessible for everyone across our state.

Florence Sabin understood that good public health doesn’t happen automatically. It requires science, trust, and a continued commitment to ensuring everyone has access to the care they need.

Nearly eight decades after she fought to strengthen public health in Colorado, that work endures.

It’s what Coloradans deserve. And it’s what we’ll keep fighting for.