Coffman, who hosted a contentious April town hall, held another one late Tuesday with several hundred constituents who filled half of a high school gymnasium in the northeastern suburb of Brighton. The event came after the GOP-led Congress failed to act on President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
And it came as Coffman’s Colorado GOP colleague, Rep. Ken Buck, declared the Republican Party dead in a Denver Post commentary. Buck said the party has accomplished little in Congress and “no longer has a vision for a better America.”
Coffman ventured that gerrymandered congressional districts that create safe seats are to blame.
“Most districts are so red or so blue. They have no reason to compromise,” Coffman said of both party leaders and the vast bulk of members of Congress. His own district, in contrast, remains highly competitive, though Coffman has fended off a succession of Democratic challengers.
There were hoots and boos for his support of a wall along the Mexican border and his insistence that former President Obama’s health law be repealed. There were cheers for his support for immigrants, especially U.S. military veterans facing deportation, and his efforts to ensure children brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents are able to stay.
Coffman, first elected in 2008 in a district that now has more Democrats than Republicans, previously avoided town halls, favoring private meetings with constituents or more scripted telephone town halls.
He bucked the House Republican majority by voting against health care legislation that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said would deprive millions of insurance. While favoring replacing the law, he wants to ensure continued coverage for pre-existing conditions.
Coffman also has criticized President Donald Trump’s threats to end subsidies to insurance companies. The congressman has opposed efforts to cut Medicaid coverage not only for those who enrolled under the Obama law’s Medicaid expansion but for those covered before the law.
Coffman has called for separating debate over cutting health law taxes for the wealthy from changes to the health law and including it in tax reform legislation. He wants a bipartisan effort to support struggling state health insurance markets.
Colorado state auditors say Colorado’s own health insurance exchange, which enrolls 178,000 people, may be financially sustainable for the next few years. But participating insurers have proposed drastic premium hikes for individuals next year, and many counties, especially on the Western Slope, have just one insurer in the exchange.