CSU primary focus in mixed bag of proposed legislation

By Dan MacArthur
Fossil Creek Current

Larimer County's legislative delegation will focus much of its attention on Colorado State University when the state General Assembly convenes Jan. 10, while offering a few bills that should liven up the session.

Among them are measures that would enable retailers to sell gas below cost, require licensing of kidney dialysis providers and establish an instant runoff voting system.

Legislators are limited to five bills. Titles for the first three had to be filed in December and the remaining two by Jan. 15.

Sen. Bob Bacon, a Fort Collins Democrat, said he is proposing that the state set aside $2 million as a matching fund for federal grants to CSU and the state's other two research universities. With the economic downturn, he said, no money was available for such grants requiring a state match. The fund, he said, will give the universities leverage to accept such grants and attract additional ones.

At CSU's request, Bacon said, he also has proposed legislation allowing it to offer continuing contracts to educators bringing research grants to the university, rather than being compelled to offer them tenure, as is currently the case.

Newly elected Fort Collins Democratic Rep. John Kefalas said he is seeking to change state statutes so CSU can offer health insurance to graduate students serving as teaching and research assistants. Kefalas said there would be no additional costs associated with the proposal because it only would allow CSU to offer the benefits, but graduate students would pay for them.

Rep. Randy Fischer, another Fort Collins freshman Democrat, said he is carrying a bill that will indirectly assist CSU and its affiliated Colorado Water Resources Research Institute. Fischer said he wants to direct additional funds to the institute from the state's severance tax collected from companies extracting oil, gas and mineral resources from the state.

The move, he said, would free for other purposes the funding that CSU now provides the institute, while promoting increased water research into such areas as developing low-water plants suitable for production of biofuels.

"Colorado never really has provided much research money to the institute," said Fischer.

He and Berthoud Republican Rep. Kevin Lundberg also are proposing varied changes in the Medicaid program that provides health and nursing home care to the state's poorest people.

Fischer said he proposes to make children eligible for Medicaid services until age 19. Medicaid currently is available to young children of families whose income exceeds the federally defined poverty level by no more than a third, according to Fischer. But, he said, they lose eligibility at age 6 if their family income even slightly exceeds the poverty level. He said his legislation is estimated to expand eligibility to 7,000 additional children.

There would be a cost for extending the program, Fischer conceded. But he maintained that there would be advantages in creating greater consistency and freeing up funding to increase participation in the state's Child Health Care Plan Plus--a program for uninsured children 18 and younger whose parents earn too much for Medicaid but not enough to otherwise afford health insurance.

"I think spending money on kids is the most effective use of our health-care dollars," Fischer said.

Lundberg said he, for the third time, will offer a bill authorizing the state to seek a waiver from federal Medicaid requirements to bring greater choice and flexibility to what he characterized as an unsustainable program.

With such a waiver, Lundberg proposes that the state provide those eligible for Medicaid half the amount otherwise required for skilled-nursing care. Recipients could use that money as they see fit to hire workers providing health care in their homes rather than being forced into much more costly nursing homes.

"It puts the authority and dignity of care in the hands of those receiving the care," Lundberg said.

Kefalas and Loveland Republican Sen. Steve Johnson each will carry bills related to other aspects of health-care reform.

Kefalas's bill to require licensing of dialysis providers is aimed at protecting those with kidney disease who receive treatment at private clinics, where Kefalas said there are concerns about excessive mortality and infection rates. He said the license fees would cover the cost of administering the program.

Johnson said he expects most of his time will be consumed by his demanding duties on the Joint Budget Committee, which prepares the annual state budget. In that capacity, he hopes to restore funding for higher education and increase capital construction funding for projects such as the veterinary diagnostic lab at CSU. A former veterinarian, Johnson said the lab now is housed in a modular unit totally inadequate to handle the "hundreds if not thousands" of samples it receives for testing.

Johnson also said he has proposed legislation that would require health insurance companies to disclose their compensation rate to doctors upfront and forbid them from changing the terms of a contract during its term.

Such transparency is essential, Johnson said, because insurers often contract with so many physicians in a given market that the companies arbitrarily can dictate policy terms. "Doctors sometimes don't even know what they'll be paid," he said.

Johnson said the reforms contained in his bill should greatly reduce the paperwork that typically consumes a third of a physician's office staff time. "We think this will save millions of dollars in health costs," he said.

If necessary, Johnson said, he also will draft legislation dealing with the problem of railroads blocking major roadways in Fort Collins for extended periods of time. "It's become a huge headache," he said.

Johnson said he would prefer that the city and the railroads reach an agreement. But if they don't, he said, legislation similar to Indiana's limiting blockages to no more than 10 minutes may be necessary. That likely would result in a lawsuit, Johnson said, because it's not entirely clear whether the state has the legal authority to regulate railroads.

Johnson also will be the senate sponsor of a bill amending the Colorado Unfair Practices Act allowing retailers to sell merchandise below cost.

The issue arose when the Kroger grocery store chain recently was convicted of violating the 1937 law. Wal-Mart and Target subsequently announced that the law would prevent them from offering certain generic prescriptions for $4, as they do in states without such laws.

Kefalas said he also wants to institute a pilot program to investigate instant runoff voting. "This ought to make for lively discussion," he said.

Under the system, in races with more than two candidates, voters rank them in order of preference. If no one candidate receives a majority of first preferences, those with fewest votes are eliminated one by one. The votes of those eliminated candidates then are transferred to the voters' subsequent preferences until a single candidate receives a majority.

"I don't think we could jump right into a statewide election," Kefalas said. But he said the system would give voters great choice, reduce costs and increase involvement by encouraging voters to select their preferred candidate without the frequently cited fear of "throwing their vote away" on third-party candidates.

Fischer said he is proposing that the state provide the remaining $175,000 needed by CSU's Natural Resources Ecology Laboratory to complete field and lab studies quantifying the amount of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere through low-till farming methods. Doing so, he said, will enable the Colorado agricultural community to participate in carbon exchange programs in which carbon dioxide-producing industries offset their emissions by buying credits from those whose efforts reduce carbon dioxide.

Bacon said he has reintroduced a bill, vetoed by the governor last year, authorizing school districts to seek a mill-levy override election to fund full-day kindergarten classes. Currently, he said, school districts are compensated by the state only for half-day classes. "This year I'm counting on the governor to approve it," Bacon said.

And Lundberg said he once again has proposed legislation redirecting oil shale severance tax revenues to highways and property tax relief.