State Sen. Ellen Roberts and State Rep. J. Paul Brown both targeted growing Medicaid costs for squeezing the rest of the state budget when they gave the annual "Legislative Lowdown" in Durango on March 5. The event is sponsored by the League of Women Voters of La Plata County.
Money issues came up through most of the topics they discussed, including K-12 education, highway funding, water storage, more efficient use of ag water, and a presidential primary election, as well as health care.
"We have two challenges: to balance our budget and fund schools," Roberts said. One in five Coloradans is on Medicaid, she said. Medicaid doesn't pay providers the full cost of providing services, so the cost is shifted to private insurance premiums. Roberts cited expansion of eligibility for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. "There's really nothing affordable about it," she asserted.
"In my communities, we've always been challenged to have providers who would take Medicaid," she said. "We don't have enough to serve those already on Medicaid. We're trying to keep providers' (reimbursement) rates to where they will keep their doors open. When you feel like K-12, higher education, roads, are getting cut, that's true. The money is going to Medicaid."
Brown said the Medicaid income eligibility has been raised to four times the federal poverty rate, so a family of four can qualify with an income of $90,000. "We can't pay for it all," he said.
Brown, a former Ignacio School Board member, said K-12 funding is one of his top issues. The governor's proposed budget for 2016-17 shorts education by $831 million, he said, and state funding cuts referred to as the Negative Factor have cost schools $4 or $5 billion statewide over the past several years. "We are spending in other areas, mainly Medicaid," he said. "I think we'll have to cut some place else to fund K-12."
He also cited the cost to school districts of unfunded state and federal mandates. "We have to get serious about taking away some of these unfunded mandates. That's one cost that we could do something about."
Brown listed highway funding as another top priority for him. He has laid out details of highway funding issues in recent columns in the Feb. 26 Times and in the Durango Herald. Senate Bill 228, passed in 2009, set a trigger for an additional $200 million a year for five years to be transferred to highway funding, but it hasn't happened. If the state TABOR Amendment mandates a refund to taxpayers, that would cut by half or eliminate the $200 million transfer, he said.
He was supporting a bill this year to add a year for each year the full SB 228 transfer doesn't happen, so there will actually be five years of transfers.
Roberts said her priority, along with Medicaid cost containment, is forest health, "not just because of expensive fires, but our forest health is directly tied to water quality and quantity. The states around us get more water than they are entitled to (by inter-state compacts) because it leaves the state much sooner than it should" without healthy forests.
Both Roberts and Brown want more water storage, especially on the Front Range. Around 87 percent of the state population is along the I-25 corridor between Fort Collins and Pueblo, Roberts said. "That should concern you. That's where the state budget primarily gets spent and where our water goes."
Brown said, "There's a lot of water going to Nebraska on the South Platte that can't be stored, around 2 million acre feet last year." There's no storage on the South Platte, he said.
He is sponsoring a bill that "says we will study that whole area for the best place to store the most water, the best cost-benefit ratio." The bill was to be heard March 7 in the House Ag Committee. "There's a lot of momentum," Brown said. "Even some environmental groups think it may not be a bad idea."
But he continued, "We can't depend on the federal government any more. We have to roll up our sleeves. The money will have to come from the cities that need water, irrigation districts, some from the West Slope."
Brown and Roberts were asked about the share of water in the state, around 85 percent, that is used for agriculture.
"Ag uses water to produce food that we eat," Roberts said. There are technologies to use water more efficiently, but they are expensive. "What we heard around the state is that will increase food costs," she said, returning to the need for more storage on the Front Range, where the population growth is.
Brown and Roberts differed on the hospital provider fee that's bringing in revenue that is triggering a TABOR refund mandate. Governor John Hickenlooper wants to make this an enterprise, not subject to TABOR revenue/ spending limits.
Brown said he would support that if it's determined to be constitutional. Right now the legislature is getting conflicting opinions on that. But it's not a long-term fix to state budget issues, he said.
Roberts called the fee "a gimmick. ... I didn't like the provider fee from the start. It's time to have tough conversations of what we can afford." The fee is "another attempt to delay the tough decisions. It's time to figure out what are our priorities."
Both strongly opposed Amendment 69 that will be on the November ballot to create a single payer health care system in Colorado, with a 10 percent tax on all income. Roberts said it is projected to cost $25 billion a year, almost equal to the current $26.4 billion state budget.
"It will break the state," Brown said. "I'll do everything I can to see that it fails."
Both Brown and Roberts lamented the legislature's diversion of Severance Tax money over the past several years to fill gaps in the state's general operating budget. The funds are from oil and gas production and are supposed to be used to mitigate impacts on oil and gas producing communities.
Both Republicans were somewhat leery of a federal Superfund designation for the mining area above Silverton, although they said the Animas River needs to be cleaned up.
Speaking a few days after party caucuses around the state, both legislators said the process reduces the clout of state voters in the presidential nomination process.
Roberts said, "I think Colorado has kind of shot itself in the foot in terms of having a voice."
Brown said, "People want to be able to vote, and for Colorado to have a say. But it costs money to have an election."
The event started with a moment of silence in honor of former State Sen. Jim Isgar, who died the day before. Roberts choked up as she spoke about him. "He was a terrific friend to the community. He gave a whole lot to this region," she said. Isgar, known for his low key manner and his black cowboy hat, had battled cancer for several years.
