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President Donald Trump would like Coloradans to know this holiday season that he wants our governor to “rot in hell” and that he wishes Mesa County’s district attorney, Dan Rubenstein, “only the worst.” All that anger directed at Coloradans is because our justice system is refusing to release a woman who was tried and convicted of fraud in relation to Trump’s illegal attempt to remain in office in 2020.

Trump’s embarrassing temper tantrums would be tolerable if they didn’t also come with real-world actions that hurt Coloradans — costing them their livelihoods, and yes, access to clean drinking water.

Gov. Jared Polis’ and Rep. Lauren Boebert’s responses to Trump give us hope that Americans can unite after Trump leaves office, as required by the U.S. Constitution, in January 2029. Trump will not succeed in his effort to divide Coloradans who love one another despite our political differences.

Trump is hurting our more liberal-minded residents in Boulder County with his decision to first cut dozens of jobs at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and then his pledge to dismantle the headquarters entirely.

And now Trump will hurt more conservative-minded Coloradans with his veto of $1.2 billion in federal funding for a clean-drinking water pipeline to residents in eastern Pueblo County who have been advised for years not to drink well water because of contamination.

Gov. Jared Polis’ response to all of this has been calm, dignified and dedicated to preserving the integrity of our justice system.

“I hope the President’s resolution this year is to spend less time online talking about me and more on making America more affordable by stopping his disastrous tariffs and fixing rising health care costs. Finally, I wish all Americans, including the President and all the wonderful people across the political spectrum, a happy, healthy and productive New Year,” Polis said Wednesday.

Boebert shot back at Trump’s veto of her bill, telling 9News that: “If this administration wants to make its legacy blocking projects that deliver water to rural Americans, that’s on them … Americans deserve leadership that puts people over politics.”

Before the New Year, Trump ordered his administration to move the work at the National Center for Atmospheric Research from Boulder to “another entity or location.”

The administration attempted to blame the move on NCAR’s work studying climate change. The White House issued a statement to The Denver Post calling NCAR “the premier research stronghold for left-wing climate lunacy.”

We disagree strongly with both of the assertions in that statement. First, the global climate is warming, and a vast amount of scientific research indicates that the trend is being driven in large part by the increase in greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide and methane, among others) in our atmosphere.

Second, NCAR’s work is professional, scientifically based and doesn’t carry a hint of the “alarmism” that we see from many politicians who talk about an extinction-level event occurring in a few years.

But we also don’t believe for a moment that “climate change alarmism” is the real reason behind Trump’s decision to dismantle NCAR — a federal agency we must remind the president that was created by Congress and funded by Congress and protected from unilateral termination by the executive branch.

Trump’s decision came rapidly after Colorado officials refused Trump’s demand that Tina Peters be released from jail. Peters, a former clerk and recorder from Mesa County, was convicted of using fraudulent means to give a random man access to the county’s voting equipment. Peters believed Trump’s lies that the 2020 election had been stolen. She stole credentials from one of her employees and brought a man into a secure area where he accessed data from vote-counting machines. Later, she tried to cover up her actions.

The data did not show any evidence of voter fraud.

But that hasn’t prevented Trump from trying to pardon her and now from retaliating against Colorado officials who are merely upholding the work of a jury of Peter’s peers who found her guilty.

Hundreds of federal workers in Colorado have already lost their jobs as a result of Trump’s policies. Then those employees who remained suffered under the federal shutdown. Now, Trump is coming again for federal workers, claiming he is trying to reduce the federal debt and deficit. But Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill added more to the federal deficit than what he has cut so far.

Which brings us to Trump’s most recent retaliatory action against Colorado, which he says was done in the name of cutting the federal budget and “restoring fiscal sanity.”

We cannot argue with Trump that the $1.3 billion price tag to bring clean drinking water to 50,000 residents is steep. But it is not wasteful. This is a necessary and long-awaited public infrastructure project. The project has been thoroughly vetted and is shovel-ready.

Trump’s veto is a black eye on his administration, and his outlandish words and actions only underline why he is wholly unfit to serve as president of the United States of America.

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Following a misleading report on hospital finances, The Denver Post published an editorial that misrepresents UCHealth’s role in caring for Colorado patients and misstates key facts about our financial operations. Despite our efforts to provide accurate information, the editorial board’s column understates UCHealth’s uncompensated care, mischaracterizes our service to Medicaid patients and perpetuates misconceptions about investment income.

These inaccuracies are easily disproven by publicly available data, and we believe it’s important to set the record straight.

UCHealth does more than any health system in Colorado to care for Medicaid patients, and we are proud to do so.

Last year, UCHealth served 30% of all hospitalized Medicaid patients in Colorado, twice as many as any other provider. At our flagship facility, University of Colorado Hospital, we cared for almost 18,000 hospitalized Medicaid patients and provided over $280 million in uncompensated care, more than any other hospital in the state. This is not just a statistic; it reflects our deep commitment to ensuring access to care for those who need it most.

In fiscal year 2025 alone, UCHealth provided approximately $670 million in uncompensated care – an amount that has been growing as more Coloradans become uninsured or need assistance with their health care bills. Unlike some hospitals that receive financial support from local cities, counties, or taxpayers, UCHealth received no such funding last year. Every dollar we earn is reinvested in Colorado – supporting patients, employees and communities across our state.

We agree that health care affordability and insurance premium increases are a real concern for Coloradans, especially as premiums are expected to double for those who buy their insurance from the exchange.

UCHealth is dedicated to making health care accessible and affordable. We provide free care for anyone whose household income is below 250% of the federal poverty guidelines – about $80,000 per year for a family of four – and significant discounts for those earning up to 400% of the guidelines – $128,000 for a family of four. These programs ensure that hundreds of thousands of Coloradans receive the care they need, regardless of their ability to pay.

We also support rural hospitals across Colorado by offering low-cost IT services, advanced medical records and accepting thousands of patient transfers from hospitals unable to provide a higher level of care. These partnerships help stabilize rural health care and keep care local whenever possible.

Despite our total expenses increasing by 9.3% last year, UCHealth’s average reimbursement rate rose by only 2.0%. This gap underscores the financial pressures facing health systems and how providers are working to minimize price increases for patients.

UCHealth is proud to be a Colorado-based nonprofit health system and one of the state’s largest employers. All revenue stays in Colorado and is reinvested to support patients, employees, and communities. Our mission is clear: to improve lives and provide exceptional care for all Coloradans.

The editorial places undue emphasis on investment income, which is highly volatile and includes unrealized gains. Just as a household would not base its monthly budget on the performance of a retirement account, it would be irresponsible for a health care provider to rely on long-term investments to fund operations. These gains can disappear overnight. This volatility is precisely why investment gains or losses should not be used as a measure of financial stability. UCHealth’s financial reserve, which is typical for a system of our size, enables us to care for patients during times of uncertainty, including pandemics, federal government shutdowns that delay or stop payments to hospitals, or dramatic increases in expenses.

The appropriate metric for measuring a hospital’s stability is operating margin. UCHealth’s operating margin last year was 3.5%, a level that provides stability but little excess. This modest margin allows us to maintain high-quality services, invest in technology, provide updated equipment for our patients and recruit top clinicians, all while navigating rising costs and reimbursement challenges.

We welcome thoughtful dialogue about health care costs and access. But that conversation must be grounded in facts. UCHealth’s record speaks for itself: unparalleled service to Medicaid patients, hundreds of millions in uncompensated care, more than $1 billion in total community benefits, and a steadfast commitment to affordability and community health. These are the values that guide us, and they deserve to be recognized accurately.

Elizabeth B. Concordia is the president and CEO of UCHealth.

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A kabuki pardon for a convicted election saboteur, threats of a prison break to free her, governor-bating presidential propaganda, and possible political retribution filled recent headlines but the real threat to the state’s elections happened quietly behind the curtains of political theater back in November. Unless, the Colorado legislature addresses that insidious attempt to subvert our elections, it will continue in 2026.

December’s drama centered around former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters who was sentenced to nine years for breaching election security in a failed attempt to find evidence of election fraud. After months of posting false information on social media and demanding her release lest Colorado face “harsh measures,” President Donald Trump granted Peters a meaningless pardon; he has no jurisdiction over state court convictions.

That didn’t stop Peters’ befuddled lawyer, fake pardon in hand, from visiting the prison only to be turned away. Meanwhile, Trump renewed his attacks on the state and Governor Jared Polis on social media. Even more unhinged voices joined him. Far-right podcaster Joe Oltmann, January 6th rioter Jake Lang, and another of Peters’ attorneys called for violence to free Peters. Then the Administration announced it will dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, an action some speculate is one of the “harsh measures” Trump promised.

Apart from the loss of a notable research institution, most of these end-of-year headlines are much ado about nothing. The real threat to election integrity got comparatively fewer headlines back in November when one out of three of the Arapahoe County Canvass Board refused to certify the results of the 2025 election.

I had a chance to talk about the process with Jane Ringer, a Democrat, and Matt Crane, the executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association and a Republican, about the certification process and why this seemingly small act of subversion undermines elections and erodes faith in the process.

As directed by Colorado law, a county canvass board comprising of a delegate of the county Republican party, a delegate of the Democratic party, and the county clerk, meet before and after each election to test machines and certify the results. At each step, the bipartisan delegates work together to examine ballots, test machines, ensure hand and machine counts match, and study the election data for inconsistencies.

After the last election, the Republican delegate, Robert Downey, refused to sign off on the results even though every process had been completed correctly and he found no problems.

The fact that Downey is an election denier is not surprising. If you want to feel like the only sober person at a 3 AM frat party, check out the Arapahoe County GOP’s website. You’ll find cameos of pillow magnate Mike Lindell, Tina Peters, and Joe Oltmann, a thoroughly discredited “report” about the 2020 election, and pictures from the last Lincoln Day dinner featuring Lara Logan, the once credible journalist who has been on a conspiracy theory bender since she embraced Pizzagate and QAnon tales of leaders drinking children’s blood.

It would be funnier if the Downey incident was an isolated case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, but it’s not. In the 2023 general election, Republican canvass board members in Boulder, El Paso, Jefferson, Larimer, and La Plata counties refused to certify results. GOP representatives in the largest of these three counties repeated their subversive efforts after the 2024 presidential primaries and then Archuleta, Eagle, Gilpin, and Larimer counties joined them that fall in attempting to compromise the certification process. Deniers seek to delay the results and generate the negative headlines they crave to undermine the public’s faith in the process.

Fortunately, those refusing to certify were in the minority and the election results were certified without their signatures. Under Colorado law, the secretary of state can step if such a failure occurs. That has happened in other states. A 2024 investigation by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington identified 35 rogue election officials in eight states who attempted to undermine elections in this way. In some cases, the secretary of state had to intervene. In Georgia, a judge ruled that county certification of election results is mandatory by the deadline set in law thereby preventing election deniers from delaying the process.

Colorado has laws against subverting the certification process, but are they sufficient?  Next year’s election is going to be contentious. Lawmakers need to hold hearings in the upcoming session to determine how these laws can be strengthened to prevent election deniers from interfering.

Krista Kafer is a Sunday Denver Post columnist.

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