Gov. Jared Polis digitally reached across the aisle last month by celebrating the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for Health and Human Services Secretary by President-elect Donald Trump. As an advocate who seeks bipartisan paths to advance public health policy, I welcomed the willingness to build a bridge with the incoming administration. However, when you ask Colorado voters of all political stripes, he was building a bridge to a dangerous place.
When the governor posted that RFK Jr. “helped us defeat vaccine mandates in Colorado in 2019 and will help make Americans healthy again,” it reminded me of the oddest moment I’ve experienced at the Colorado state Capitol.
In 2020, I was testifying in support of legislation to improve immunization rates among school-aged children. The bill was a modest compromise made with the governor and others, after a version from 2019 that included immunization mandates was defeated at the governor’s behest.
Nonetheless, the chamber was swarmed with anti-vaccine activists who had been mobilized by figures including Kennedy. As I stood after finishing my testimony, an unwelcome chin was perched on my right shoulder from behind. It belonged to an opponent of the bill, who whispered in my ear, “sweet dreams …”
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There was nothing problematic about the governor’s description of his successful partnership with Kennedy in defeating our bipartisan bill – that was accurate. The problem is that many of Kennedy’s views are well outside both the scientific consensus and bipartisan mainstream, and the health of Americans may suffer as a result. In Colorado, that’s already happening.
Child immunization rates in our state are falling, putting kids at needless risk for illnesses that we had nearly driven into oblivion. In the 2022-23 school year, Colorado ranked 45th in the nation in kindergarten coverage rates for measles, at 86.8%, below the 92-94% community immunity threshold.
Meanwhile, Coloradans support even stronger action than what’s currently being applied to protect children, as about three-quarters of voters believe that “before being able to send their children to schools and childcare centers, parents should be required to have them vaccinated for contagious diseases,” per a survey conducted this month by a bipartisan polling team for the organization I run, Healthier Colorado.
President Eisenhower said, “every parent and every child should be grateful” when polio was essentially eradicated during his presidency over six decades ago. Now, even that vaccine is under attack by Kennedy, drawing the ire of polio survivor and Republican Senator Mitch McConnell. This adds to a string of dangerous and disproven positions taken by RFK, Jr., including the false linkage between vaccines and autism.
We must not go back to proliferating the diseases of yesteryear, and a bipartisan majority of voters are pointing the way forward on health issues at the state and federal level.
Here in Colorado, we have experienced the nation’s largest net decline in Medicaid enrollment since the pandemic, with more than half of that decline resulting from state bureaucratic failings. People who qualify for Medicaid are being excluded from coverage, leaving them without access to health care, and putting health providers into a financial bind with an increase in uninsured patients. Fortunately, 78% of Colorado voters, including over 68% of Republicans, are in favor of investing taxpayer dollars to fix this problem.
Colorado can benefit from a strong working relationship with the Trump administration in selected areas, and Governor Polis is wise to pursue one. However, Coloradans reject Kennedy’s fringe views on vaccines, and a plurality believes that “doctors and scientists” have “too little” influence over public health policy. This isn’t an elitist view, it’s common sense – only 28% percent of Coloradans with a high school education or less think that doctors and scientists have “too much” influence.
Poll after poll shows that Polis is on the right track with his successful effort to save people money on health care. Moreover, this month’s poll showed alignment with the sentiment expressed by the governor and Kennedy about the influence of the pharmaceutical and processed foods industries, as about 7 in 10 Colorado voters agree. On these and other issues, we can take a pragmatic approach that moves us forward, not backward, so we can improve people’s well-being and save lives.
Jake Williams is the CEO of Healthier Colorado, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to raising the voices of Coloradans in the public policy process to improve the health of our state’s residents.
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