This op-ed by Kayla Frawley appeared on Colorado Newsline on March 27, 2026.
After rescheduling a previous vote, Colorado Board of Health and Human Services will decide on April 3 whether to implement the “Healthy Choice Waiver,” which would limit the purchase of certain beverages with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.
For nearly six hours earlier this month, advocates shuffled into the Health and Human Services Board meeting to share commentary on why this waiver is not what it says it is.
I was there to comment as a SNAP participant who provides for myself and my son in Denver. I have gone on and off SNAP as I face dire economic challenges as a single-parent-led household. As of 2024, close to 32% of Denver’s children are living in single-parent-led households, and I represent one of the 17,100 homes with single moms in the city, and a part of the 19% of single parents in the state of Colorado.
Contrary to the title of the waiver — which the Trump administration has persuaded 15 states to adopt — there is no data that shows us that it decreases childhood obesity, decreases parental obesity, lowers heart rate or risk of cardiovascular disease at all. There is no data that shows these waivers make the lives of SNAP participants better or healthier.
It seems astonishing, but it’s all just a part of the strategic plan from the administration: the “Make American Healthy Again” plan led by Robert F Kennedy Jr.
On its surface, the Healthy Choice Waiver promises better nutrition outcomes for SNAP participants by restricting what people can purchase. But beneath the language of “choice” and “health” is something much older and far more troubling: disciplining the poor while stigmatizing them for their circumstances.
By now, most Americans know that poverty is a policy choice — a direct result of governmental decisions regarding taxation, stagnant wages, social safety nets, and economic regulation rather than an inevitable outcome of a free market. In my research, I have found that the federal government is working in various ways to limit welfare programs, like SNAP, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Medicaid. An estimated 41.7 million people live on SNAP, which acts as a critical safety net program reducing food insecurity by up to 30%.
We’ve seen this before
The logic behind the Healthy Choice Waiver is not new. It echoes the same ideological foundation that shaped the Poor Laws of the 19th century, which were designed not to alleviate poverty, but to make relief undesirable. Instead of funding hunger prevention to address the hunger our federal government is trying to limit benefits through these small seeming waivers.
The principle was clear in the early 1900s as it is today: there is still a tone that assistance should be less attractive than the lowest form of labor, ensuring that people would avoid it unless absolutely desperate. Today, we have SNAP data that shows us that positive, not negative, incentives create positive buying and eating behaviors among SNAP participants. This waiver is a negative incentive as it is limiting in nature.
We also know that restrictions on food choices like this waiver can lead to increased stigmatization of program participants, making them feel blamed for public health issues. I deeply know the shame that poverty brings with it as a current SNAP participant. Often we are blamed for the circumstances we are in even though we face more economic challenges which results in more health challenges.
Regulating the behavior of those already struggling does not address public health issues.
The myth of “choice”
There is a fundamental contradiction at the heart of this policy. We are told it promotes “healthy choices.” But choice requires conditions and options. For many SNAP participants in Colorado, those conditions simply do not exist.
Many communities in Colorado lack consistent access to fresh, affordable food. Right now, 1 in 8 Coloradans is experiencing food insecurity — lacking enough nutritious food to thrive. In 2026, Colorado is seeing the highest hunger levels in a decade, driven by inflation, rising costs of living, and diminished federal pandemic-era support. Working families often rely on shelf-stable, calorie-dense options because they are practical, not because they are uninformed, and this has been a practice through all economic collapses in the country’s history including now.
When assistance is conditioned, restricted, and monitored while the underlying causes of poverty remain unaddressed, we are simply doing what the federal government has done in the past: controlling the poor, not helping them. This is how welfare programs are slowly being attacked — incrementally reshaped into something smaller and more punitive for its participants.
Colorado has long positioned itself as a state willing to innovate, not just economically, but socially. That includes recognizing that public benefits are not simply expenditures, but investments in stability, health, and participation. That also means trusting data — that positive incentives are what create positive shopping, buying and eating behaviors of SNAP participants, not negative ones like the Healthy Choice Waiver.
Policies that stigmatize and control recipients tend to reduce participation, increase hardship, and deepen distrust in public institutions. They do not produce healthier populations. They produce more precarious ones.
If we are serious about improving nutrition outcomes, there are evidence-based approaches available, like expanding SNAP benefits to match real cost-of-living increases; incentivizing fresh food purchases without restricting others; investing in local food systems and access infrastructure; addressing wage stagnation and housing costs, which are the real drivers of food insecurity.
These solutions require investment. They require political will. And they require us to move beyond the idea that poverty is a behavioral problem to be corrected.
Kayla Frawley runs a small firm devoted to policy advocacy and systems change facilitation. She is a graduate student studying social welfare law and its impact on programs at New Directions, CU Denver, during the Trump tenure.
Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com.
Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com.