My son is severely disabled with Down syndrome. Since just turning 21, he is no longer eligible for K-12 educational services from our school district. Like many Colorado graduates today, he cannot read, write or consistently count to five. But on the bright side, I will continue to pay taxes to the school district that no longer helps him.

Other states provide education services for the disabled until age 22. Michigan provides it up to 26. The ugly catch there is you must live in Michigan. And I just don’t hate my son that much.

The fear for people in my situation is that the disabled people we love are cut out of an integrated society of people their age, just to be warehoused until they die.

This is the time in my son’s life I’ve dreaded the most. How do I keep him learning and growing without school?

And now add to that the colossal Medicaid cuts of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.

The “perma-crisis” media and paid panic class are scaring people like me that up to 12 million people, the poor, elderly and handicapped, will be cruelly purged from Medicaid on which their lives depend. Those who avoid the ax will suffer heartless and severe cuts and endless red tape.

We’re told that society should be judged by how we treat the most vulnerable. So logically, the new law proves Americans are heartless, greedy and cruel.

Let me first say how grateful I am to the generous people of America and Colorado for the resources they provide for people like my son. (I’m looking at you, dear taxpayers.) There was a time when only churches and fraternal organizations helped the disabled, and that depended fully on charity.

Most Americans believe there is a governmental role for a safety net to care for those who are incapable of caring for themselves. But being incapable of caring of oneself is quite different than just preferring not to.

So, before we believe the spin and completely freak out over people like my son being dumped on the side of the road to die, it might be worth looking at what the new law does.

Overwhelmingly, the savings from this change in Medicaid come from a simple work requirement. If you want near-free health care, you need to be a productive part of society. Does this mean the Republican pipe dream comes true? Developmentally delayed children in wheelchairs working in coal mines? Sadly, no.

The work requirement is only for those who are able to work, and even then, one only needs a half-time job, or a volunteer job. And those caring for children are exempt.

Before Obamacare, my son’s mom and I had to fight for three years to get him accepted by Medicaid. Three years! The kid with Down syndrome who needed open heart surgery to survive, among another dozen operations and procedures, could not get Medicaid.

It took three years for the federal government to believe he was disabled.

After Obamacare, any able-bodied fraternity bro could go online and be enrolled in Medicaid in five minutes, without expectation of paying into the system. Rewarding not working surprisingly results in fewer people working (and less tax money to give to people who don’t work).

Medicaid’s no longer a safety net for the nation’s most vulnerable. It is a La-Z-Boy recliner for able people to receive health care for near nothing.

As we found under welfare reform during the Clinton years, demanding able people work before they get freebies dramatically reduces the amount of those asking for handouts. The fearmongering over welfare reform turned out to be like the Y2K panic of 1999. The horror never materialized. The same is likely true here.

The new bill will require states to pick up a bit more of their own Medicaid costs. This is not a bad thing. It means that states like Colorado that promote Medicare benefits to people here illegally will have to rethink their free-for-all. Even California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom is saying they should stop enrolling immigrants here illegally in Medicaid.

Could the paid-to-panic crowd be more upset that the new law bars Medicaid money for “gender affirming care”? Heaven forbid a man be denied a boob-job — so there’s money instead for a kid to get a wheelchair.

Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute in Denver and hosts “The Devil’s Advocate with Jon Caldara” on Colorado Public Television Channel 12.