State Sen. Larry Crowder didn’t need to hear the news that Colorado Republican Attorney General Cynthia Coffman believes it would be constitutional to reclassify the state’s hospital provider fee as an enterprise fund.

He was already on board.

“I didn’t really need anything other than (the opinion) of John Suthers,” Crowder, R-Alamosa, told The Colorado Statesman Monday when the news of Coffman’s opinion broke. “Coffman’s opinion codified all of the arguments,” Crowder added.

Democrats are pushing the lynchpin move for the HPF in a quest to add hundreds of millions of dollars to the budget for struggling state programs. Crowder, an oft-known maverick on key issues like this one, has said he understands the need for such a maneuver.

Republican Suthers, former state attorney general and now mayor of Colorado Springs, told The Colorado Springs Gazette earlier this month that moving the fee to an enterprise “would be the easiest, least painful solution for the taxpayers.”

Crowder’s public position in favor of the hospital provider fee move has so far made him a lone wolf among Republicans at the Capitol. He has made headlines with speeches in which he underlines the needs of his hard-pressed rural constituents, whom he says benefit from the fee and would benefit more from a move to make it an enterprise fund. He has also drawn the ire of small-government group Americans for Prosperity, which has called on conservative voters to press Crowder to “protect the constitution” and stand up against more government spending.

“I’m a staunch Republican,” Crowder says. He adds that he will not vote against the state Constitution and that he would generally oppose any tax hike. He says he has weighed all sides of the hospital fee debate.

Crowder told The Statesman that not enterprising the fee risks losing federal matching dollars tied to the fee that pay for essential services in hospitals in his district and around the state.

“I worry about a few years down he road,” Crowder said.

The hospital provider fee program, he says, will begin receiving less money from the federal government in the future. Making it an enterprise fund could save 10 percent of the matching funds. Crowder said that losing just 10 percent of hundreds of millions of dollars could be crippling to rural Colorado. He said it would force lawmakers to seriously consider a tax hike to cover the gap.

Senate President Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, has shown no sign of giving ground on the hospital fee. He held a news conference Monday after the Coffman opinion began circulating. Cadman said whether the move is declared constitutional or not, he opposes it, flat-out.

Any bill proposing the fee change will have to pass in the Senate, where Cadman calls the shots.

Outside the Capitol, Americans for Prosperity will continue to build the case against the fee change.

“We’re fighting this on the merits, regardless of the constitutionality,” AFP State Director Michael Fields told The Statesman. “We don’t think it’s constitutional, but even if it is, it’s not something that should be done.”

He said voters don’t want lawmakers to thin the power of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights. He said taxpayers want the refunds guaranteed by TABOR and to keep state spending low.

Speaker of the House Dickey Lee Hullinghorst, D-Gunbarrel, said Monday that she will be “working with members on both sides of the aisle in both chambers, and with education and transportation advocates, business leaders and healthcare providers to draft a bipartisan bill to prevent the 2016-17 state budget from becoming a disaster for the people of Colorado.”

— kara@coloradostatesman.com