DENVER – A bipartisan group of Colorado lawmakers are stepping up to remedy issues facing rural Colorado, including a recently proposed $264 million cut to hospitals.
Senate Bill 267, the so-called “Sustaining Rural Colorado Act,” would enterprise the Hospital Provider Fee and make the funds it generates exempt from the revenue limit put in place by the Taxpayer Bill of Rights. It was introduced Monday to the Senate by Sen. Jerry Sonneberg, R-Sterling, and Senate Minority Leader Lucía Guzmán, D-Denver.
The provider fee bill assesses a fee on hospitals that is then matched by the federal government and redistributed based on a formula that generally favors rural hospitals.
By enterprising the fee, the state would be able to maximize the amount of federal dollars it collects to help hospitals without going over the TABOR revenue cap.
Republicans and Democrats have shown a willingness to talk, but the bill has a long road ahead.
While the future of the bill is cloudy, the consequences of not reforming the Hospital Provider Fee are clear.
In 2016, rural hospitals paid $45 million to the fee and received $147.5 million in supplemental payouts.
In Southwest Colorado, several hospitals benefit from the provider fee to some degree.
Mercy Regional Medical Center receives the largest amount at $11.4 million. But Southwest Memorial Hospital in Cortez receives the greatest return in investment, with $1.1 million paid in 2016 and a return of just under $6.5 million.
The impact to hospitals isn’t new. In February, the Cortez-based hospital issued a letter to Sen. Don Coram and Rep. Marc Catlin, R-Montrose, asking for support in reforming the Hospital Provider Fee rather than cutting it.
This cut would result in the hospital losing $2 million, wrote Kent Rogers, CEO of the hospital.
“For a hospital like ours that operates with a very thin margin, that type of reduction would immediately threaten our hospital’s very future,” he wrote.
Haley Leonard, spokeswoman for the hospital, said endangering this thin margin could result in a reduction to the $26 million it contributions to Montezuma County through payroll alone.
“Everything costs money and we don’t want to compromise anything that will affect our customers or community,” Leonard said.
She added that she did not want to give the impression that it would cause the hospital to close, but it could mean cutting jobs or longer wait times at the hospital and its clinics.
Not all hospitals are so lucky, however, and some are contemplating the reality that they may have to close down if the fee is not changed, Becker said.
SB 267 doesn’t stop at reforming the provider fee and helping out hospitals.
The bill also would divert $395 million toward schools in rural counties, defined as having a population under 50,000, over the next three years; authorize a bonding measure for $1.35 billion for repairing and expanding the state’s roads, bridges and buildings; and request that every agency in Colorado take steps to reduce its budget by two percent next year.
Sonneberg said the bill is a necessary step toward ensuring funding equity for Colorado’s rural regions.
To aid this, 25 percent of the funds generated through bonding would have to be used for projects in rural counties, again, defined as counties with populations under 50,000.
lperkins@durangoherald.com
