… Twenty Years Ago This Week in the Colorado Statesman …  Democrat state legislators were making their opinions known on what they contended was a poor handling of Medicaid funding by the Republican majority. The minority party in both chambers had kicked off the 1997 legislative session clashing early and often with GOP leadership over Medicaid. One Senate Democratic caucus lunch took center stage in late January 1997, as Dem legislators discussed the issue among themselves, bringing in a state expert. Dean A. Woodward, legislative liaison for the Colorado Department of Healthy Care Policy and Financing, gave a presentation at the lunch, providing Democratic members with what they thought would be some information firepower.

Woodward provided the eager gathering with a detailed breakdown of the four groups who made use of Medicaid in Colorado at the time and outlined what percentage of funds they required. Although children were the largest group with 48 percent of the Medicaid population, they only used 15 percent of the funding, he said.

The largest two funding groups were, not surprisingly, the elderly, requiring 29 percent of Medicaid’s coffers, and the disabled, who required 42 percent of all Medicaid dollars spent in the state. Those statistics, Woodward contended, would have a profound effect on welfare reform efforts in Colorado.

“Quite often we hear that if we could just get all of our folks off of welfare and into work, we’d save an enormous amount of money – and we would save a lot of money,” Woodward explained. “But the big county expenditures right now are going into the elderly, and into the disabled.”

Woodward also added that about half of Medicaid dollars go to pay for nursing facilities, long-term care, mental health and people with developmental disabilities. Most of those recipients, Woodward said, would probably never become completely self-sufficient. And since most of the people on Medicaid also received some other entitlements, Woodward said, attempts to cut the welfare costs could be just as tough.

Woodward noted that some Medicaid costs rise much faster than the Consumer Price Index. The cost of nursing home care, the second most expensive Medicaid category, rose at about nine percent annually, while the CPI rose only about three percent.

A few 1997 bills introduced in the General Assembly offered to reform Medicaid. Senate Minority Leader Mike Feeley, D-Lakewood, and House Minority Leader Carol Snyder, D-Northglenn, were running SB 97-097, which aimed to set the state’s first minimum social service and benefits guidelines – including Medicaid eligibility standards – that would apply in each of the 64 counties. SB 97-042, sponsored by Sen. Jim Rizzuto, D-La Junta, proposed changes to the way funds are allocated to nursing homes, which would have also freed up some money.

Another Democratic member sponsored bill, SB 97-075, by Sen. Doug Linkhart, D-Denver, allowed more children to take advantage of Medicaid by removing the requirement that their parents or guardians not own a car worth more than $1,500. That asset test would still apply to the parents, said Linkhart, but not to the kids.

Democrats expressed unanimous support for the extension of Medicaid and other benefits to needy legal immigrants, a group which the federal government said states must decide whether or not to cover. Feeley and Sen. Dorothy Rupert, D-Boulder, feared that the Republican controlled Legislature would exclude legal immigrants as a cost-saving measure.

“They (legal immigrants) play by the rules,” Feeley said. “That means if they have problems, they should get help.”

Rupert said her fears were based on a precedent set “several years ago,” when she had been serving in the House. At that time, a bill came up to provide prenatal care for immigrant women and House Republicans killed it on the floor during second reading, Rupert complained.

“(Then) Majority Leader Scott McInnis went up to the microphone and said, in so many words, ‘These women are not us,'” Rupert recalled. “It was awful.”

“This issue has so many people terrified,” commented Senate Democratic Caucus Chairwoman Pat Pascoe, D-Denver. “I’ve had calls from Denver’s Asian community, much of which is in my district. We have Chinese grandparents struggling to learn English so they can become American citizens, just because they might need help some day.”

… Ten Years Ago … Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff was looking to the state’s highest court for guidance on Amendment 41, activating a unique and rarely used mechanism for legislative-judiciary interaction. In light of a lawsuit filed in late January 2007 by the Boettcher Foundation against the gift and revolving door banning measure for elected officials, Romanoffwent to the Colorado Supreme Court for guidance on whether state legislators could legally tamper with the so-called unintended consequences of the controversial amendment, which had been passed by voters in November the year prior.

Romanoff planned to ask for advice through written interrogatories. So far, Romanoff said, his Democratic caucus had supported him in the use of this unusual procedure.

In order for the court to consider it, Romanoff said, the bill must have passed one chamber and be on second reading in the other. That proved difficult, because some legislators were concerned with having a “fix-it” bill before they knew the legal limitations of what they could do regarding the amendment.

One naysayer, Assistant Minority Leader David Balmer, R-Arapahoe County, said “Speaker Romanoff can ask the Supreme Court or anyone else, but I would imagine that the answer is going to be the same – that the Amendment prevents any type of legislation that is going to restrict the provisions of Amendment 41. You can’t change the constitution with a statute.”

Balmer, who said he voted for Amendment 41, added, “If anybody is going to defend the constitution, it will be the Supreme Court.” Balmer said that it was impossible to say whether there would be a measure before the voters in 2008 to better define Amendment 41.

“Clearly the people have spoken on 41 with a very large yes vote … if Jared Polis is trying to fix the mess that he created, then it’s his problem to fix. I don’t think it is incumbent upon the legislature to create a statute to fix the problems in 41 that he didn’t foresee.”

… Meanwhile, Denver voters had said yes to having an elected clerk and recorder. Denver City Councilwoman Rosemary Rodriguez and City Auditor Dennis Gallagher met at a local Greek restaurant to watch the results of Denver’s special election to come in.

“I think it’s over. There’s no way,” Gallagher said, half an hour after polls closed. By that point, the margin of victory for the measure was 68 percent “Yes” to 31 percent “No.”

The election, which asked Denver voters if the Denver Election Commission should be disbanded in favor of a single elected clerk and recorder, had been a major pet project for Gallagher and Rodriguez.

“I’m looking forward to increased accountability, because that’s what it’s all about,” said Gallagher, a longtime critic of the DEC. He noted that he had warned about possible machine failures back in May 2006, but that his warnings had gone unheeded.

“I’m ecstatic,” Rodriguez said. “We’ve scheduled this election precisely as a reason to get the voters’ trust back, and this is one step in the right direction.”