… courtesy of reliably right-of-center Colorado Peak Politics, which isn’t about to cut Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper any slack.

As noted here earlier this week, Hick’s office had announced Sue Birch, executive director of the state Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, will leave to take over the Washington State Health Care Authority. The announcement included accolades for Birch from the governor himself, lauding the former public health nurse’s accomplishments.

The next day, Peak countered with this far less flattering view of Birch’s work:

Doctors and hospitals are still waiting on millions of dollars in late Medicaid payments, and they might have to wait a little longer because the person responsible for writing the checks is fleeing her job and the Hickenlooper administration.

… If Washington’s H.R. department had bothered to Google her work as executive director of the Health Care Policy and Financing Department, they would learn that she contained costs by not making the required payments.

Peak is referring to a major snafu in the implementation of a new computer system by Birch’s department last spring that resulted in the widespread, inadvertent denial of Medicaid claims, hampering reimbursement. AdvocacyDenver, which serves citizens with developmental disabilities, offers an in-depth and balanced recap of that issue on its website; read it here.