February 19, 2016

Editorial: Moving hospital provider fee into enterprise fund won’t hurt TABOR’s health

Sometimes, it’s OK to say “yes.”

Colorado state legislators should practice that simple word before responding to Gov. John Hickenlooper’s proposal to shift the hospital provider fee into an enterprise fund, thus skirting an unintended consequence of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.

TABOR, passed in 1992, forbids the state from spending at a growth rate beyond population growth, plus inflation. That’s all well and good. But a fee charged to hospitals by the state, and then used to secure a federal match for expansion of Medicaid and other programs, will propel the state beyond TABOR spending limits, mandating refunds to taxpayers.

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The hospital provider fee is projected to raise $750 million this year, forcing TABOR refunds.

The problem? Further state budget cuts, to the tune of $373 million, with discretionary spending the victim. That’s discretionary spending as in anything beyond Medicaid and a few other programs, essentially. Like the state’s colleges and universities? How about a fast track to defunding them entirely? Like roads and bridges? Good luck getting any of them built or repaired.

TABOR has been popular with voters, who have guarded against efforts to weaken it. But “enterprises,” defined as government-owned businesses, are expressly allowed in TABOR. Taking a fee that is expressly for the purpose of Medicaid expansion and declaring it an enterprise follows both the spirit and the letter of TABOR.

But some argue differently. Some state legislators have rejected Hickenlooper’s proposal out of hand, with Senate president Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, citing a legal opinion from the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Legal Services. Out-of-state interests have gotten into the act, too, with Arlington, Va.-based Americans for Prosperity, initially funded by the Koch brothers, discouraging any attempt to weaken TABOR, something they see as inevitable if the hospital provider fee is removed from TABOR limits.

Out-of-state interests should stay there: out of state. It is up to Colorado how to limit government, and how to set priorities for taxation and spending — not Virginia-based groups with Texas funding and a Colorado chapter.

Those same legislators who argue against designating the hospital provider fee an enterprise should identify what programs they would cut as an alternative. Let them go on the record as against any funding for higher education, roads, bridges, etc.

If they have the audacity to reject a reasonable means of mitigating an unintended consequence of TABOR, let them at least own up to the intended consequences of their inaction.

Sometimes, it’s OK to say “yes.”

Colorado state legislators should practice that simple word before responding to Gov. John Hickenlooper’s proposal to shift the hospital provider fee into an enterprise fund, thus skirting an unintended consequence of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.

TABOR, passed in 1992, forbids the state from spending at a growth rate beyond population growth, plus inflation. That’s all well and good. But a fee charged to hospitals by the state, and then used to secure a federal match for expansion of Medicaid and other programs, will propel the state beyond TABOR…

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