Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 13, 1992 TAG: 9202130362
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROB EURE and GREG SCHNEIDER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
HEALTH-CARE TAX BARELY STAYS ALIVE
Gov. Douglas Wilder's health-care tax plan narrowly escaped the House Finance Committee on Wednesday, propelled to the floor on a 10-9 vote that hinged on one member being out of the room.Minutes later, the Senate Finance Committee killed its version of the measure on a voice vote that sounded lopsided against the tax.
Secretary of Health and Human Resources Howard Cullum, undaunted by the close call, vowed to press the fight through the House.
Cullum said he expects the measure to gain support because it will be tied to the state budget, forcing legislators to either accept it or find a $60 million substitute.
"I've been reading for the past month that the bill was dead," Cullum said. "But it's still alive in the House."
Even the chief medical industry opponent of the bill refused to pronounce a post-mortem.
"As far as I'm concerned, the issue is still very, very much alive," said Laurens Sartoris of the Virginia Hospital Association.
Despite administration optimism, and arm-twisting that began right away, several legislators said prospects for the measure appear grim. Hospitals and doctors opposing the bill have lobbied furiously to stop it, and even before the tax fight, the medical lobby was acknowledged as among the state's most influential and most well-heeled. Doctors and hospitals and their associations contributed more than $265,000 last year to the campaigns of House members and more than $196,000 to senators, according to campaign financial reports.
The tax on hospitals, doctors and nursing homes would raise $60 million to help the state pay federally mandated Medicaid costs - health care for the poor.
The House panel modified the plan in three ways:
Limited the tax to two years, with an expiration date of June 30, 1994.
Raised the annual tax on doctors from Wilder's proposed $200 to $250.
Added a provision for medical associations to work with the state to change the way Medicaid is administered. The proposal would make recipients stick to a single doctor instead of shopping around.
The measure provoked little debate in the House committee, aside from a failed attempt by Del. George Grayson, D-Williamsburg, to eliminate the tax on doctors. Grayson suggested that if the tax applied to doctors, it should apply to lawyers, "who I believe contribute just as much to the health-care cost crisis as physicians."
The whole tax plan would have failed if Del. Leslie Byrne, D-Falls Church, had not left the room shortly before the vote.
"I had to meet with a constituent at 11 o'clock for 10 minutes," Byrne said later. "By the time I got back, everything was over but the shouting."
House Finance Committee Chairman Richard Cranwell, D-Vinton, appeared ready to call for a vote on the measure earlier when Byrne also was absent, but delayed because administration officials asked for more time.
Byrne said she would have voted against the tax, making it fail on a 10-10 tie. None of the delegates who supported the bill was willing to reopen the vote when she returned, Byrne said.
"It was no accident that she was out of the room when the vote was taken," said Steve Haner, director of the Joint Republican Caucus.
In the Senate committee, the fate of the tax was never in question.
Before the vote, Sen. Stanley Walker, D-Norfolk, made a last-minute plea to at least give the whole Senate a crack at the proposal.
"I don't want to see us just walk away from this thing because of the strong lobby on behalf of the Virginia Hospital Association," Walker said.
The measure failed on a voice vote, and the committee then defeated an effort by chairman Hunter Andrews, D-Hampton, to delay the tax for a year.
Members said they thought other measures could provide the money, including a compromise plan that Sartoris had presented earlier in the meeting.
In that plan, the hospitals offered to work with the state to cut costs and limit hospital stays, bringing Medicaid expenditures down by $20 million.
The hospitals have maintained that Wilder's tax would end up on patients' bills and drive health-care costs even higher. The compromise, Sartoris said, "is our fair share."
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