Democratic legislators and Gov. John Hickenlooper placed reclassifying the state’s hospital provider fee as an enterprise fund at the top of their priorities list when the 2016 legislative session opened in January.

Yet, despite a major push launched inside and outside the Capitol, the plan failed.

In a move that surprised no one who followed the issue even causally, hospital fee bill HB 1420 died on a 3-2 party-line vote when it made its way to the Senate finance committee Tuesday afternoon. The Democratic-controlled House passed the bill a week ago, after sitting on it for more than a month while backstage negotiations continued. It was finally introduced in the Senate Tuesday morning. The legislative session ends Wednesday.

Democrats tried and failed to pass a similar bill last year. Reclassifying the fee would move hundreds of millions of dollars out of the state’s general fund, making room for an equivalent amount of tax money, which a companion spending bill from the House this year would have allocated to state programs without hitting the spending cap put in place by the Taxpayer Bill of Rights.

“The reality is I’m looking at a problem with a possible solution. It doesn’t help today or tomorrow, but down the road,” Sen. Larry Crowder, R-Alamosa, said during committee Tuesday. He was one of the very few Republicans in the building who supported the bill. “We’re charged with (promoting) the benefit of the people, and what is that benefit to the people? Is it a benefit to the people to not enterprise this?”

Crowder was the Senate sponsor. The bill picked up five Republican supporters in the House. But Democrats never won over Senate President Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs. When it was assigned to Senate Finance on Tuesday morning, chaired by Sen. Tim Neville, R-Littleton, the least likely Republican to get behind HB 1420, the writing was on the wall.

Still, 320 organizations and individuals testified in favor of the bill Tuesday. Supporters included chambers of commerce, rural hospital organization, medical associations, construction companies and school organizations.

The two Democrats on the Senate committee, Sens. Andy Kerr, D-Lakewood, and Mike Johnston, D-Denver, pointed out the enormous support for the bill and noted that only group had registered to oppose it: the well-funded small-government group Americans for Prosperity.

“A no vote on this is a vote for more potholes and more traffic,” Johnston said. “This is not a technical fix of an enterprise fund. This is a values vote on the quality of (governmental) service.”

Jon Caldera, head of the libertarian Independence Institute, was quick to release a statement praising the death of the bill, calling it a win for taxpayers.

“Perhaps as taxpayers learn this ‘budget problem’ was caused not by a lack of tax revenue, but by the state increasing Medicaid spending over 300 percent (thanks Obamacare) while our roads crumble and schools are in ‘negative’ funding, they’ll realize it’s the spending, stupid,” he wrote.

Supporters said the bill would “fix a glitch” tied to the provider fee when it passed in 2009. It should have originally been classified as an enterprise fund, they said.

Sen. Owen Hill, R-Colorado Springs, didn’t buy the argument and channeled his inner rapper during testimony.

“This is a glitch? I would say our budget has 99 problems but a glitch is not one,” Hill said, referencing Jay-Z’s song “99 Problems” (https://vimeo.com/110496766 NSFW). “If we were to pass it today, we’d create a sugar high, a quick infusion of money we can be excited about, but quickly it would be gone.”

Kerr, not catching the reference, said he thought Colorado had more than 99 problems.

“The fact that we have a budget that’s grown from $20 billion to $27 billion from 2012 to 2016, demonstrates we have have a spending problem in Colorado,” Neville said before casting his no vote. “Medicaid is the 800 lb. gorilla in the room.”

-Ramsey@coloradostatesman.com