Denver Health and Colorado’s other “safety net” hospitals Wednesday moved closer to a one- year, $142 million reprieve as the U.S. House voted to block Bush administration cuts to Medicaid.
The 349-62 vote to “protect the Medicaid safety net” had a big enough margin to override a threatened presidential veto.
The Senate will now take up the issue, and Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., said he expects it to find strong bipartisan support, though a veto-proof majority is not a sure thing in the Senate.
A veto override would be only the second for President Bush. Last year a water-projects bill was passed over a Bush veto.
“Denver Health is very pleased and deeply grateful,” said Patricia Gabow, chief executive of Den-ver Health.
The looming Medicaid cuts would be “Colorado’s own little Katrina,” Gabow said, severely reducing health care services for the poor and underserved.
Medicaid provides health care for low-income people.
The changes would have hit Colorado hard by no longer considering several hospitals — including Denver Health, University of Colorado Hospital and Memorial Hospitals in Colorado Springs — as “safety net” institutions and therefore cutting their reimbursement rates.
That would mean $142 million less annually for those hospitals.
Denver Health — which treated nearly 43,000 Medicaid patients in 2006 — estimated it would lose about $60 million from the hospital’s $510 million budget if the Medicaid changes take effect May 25.
“This is one big first step,” said Jeff Thompson, director of government relations at University Hospital, which would take a $30 million annual hit from the planned cuts.
Thompson said he hoped the Senate would quickly take up the issue. “The clock is ticking. May 25 is looming,” he said.
The Bush administration’s planned rule changes would cut about $15 billion annually from Medicaid’s budget, according to the White House.
Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., one of 205 co-sponsors of the Medicaid bill, said the bill’s one-year delay in the cuts is “long enough for a new administration.”
Delaying the cuts would cost the federal government about $1.7 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
That cost would be offset, the supporters of the bill say, by savings from two provisions: electronic verification of Medicaid applicant’s assets, and the temporary borrowing of money from Medicaid’s Physician Quality Improvement Fund.
Along with DeGette, Colorado Democrats Ed Perlmutter, John Salazar and Mark Udall voted for the bill. Republicans Doug Lamborn, Marilyn Musgrave and Tom Tancredo opposed it.
Katy Human: 303-954-1910 or khuman@denverpost.com
