Hospitals lobby to retain aid

CARSON CITY -- Some rural Nevada hospitals will fail unless legislators restore the $25 million a year in indigent accident funds that Gov. Jim Gibbons wants to take from them, a longtime county lobbyist testified Wednesday.

"Without it, hospitals probably will not make it in some of the smaller communities," said Bob Hadfield, a lobbyist for the Nevada Association of Counties and several rural counties.

Hadfield also told the Assembly Ways and Means Committee that rural hospitals already would have been closed if they did not have the money available from the indigent accident fund since the 1980s. He did not identify hospitals that might close without the funds.

The committee took no immediate action on Assembly Bill 404, a proposal by Assembly Minority Leader Heidi Gansert, R-Reno. Action is not expected until May when legislators will know how much revenue will be available for them to spend over the next two years. Tax increases then may be considered.

"We will do what we can to find funds," said Chairman Morse Arberry, D-Las Vegas. "Indigent care is an increasingly difficult issue. We understand your plight."

Gansert noted that during the special legislative session in December the governor and legislators agreed to a "one-time sweep" of the indigent accident fund. But then in his proposed two-year budget released in January, the governor decided to retain the money in the state general fund rather than returning it to hospitals.

"Hospitals have been hit repeatedly during this downturn," said Gansert, noting there was a 5 percent cut in hospital medical cost reimbursements by the state and another 5 percent cut is proposed.

Gibbons' communications director Daniel Burns said the governor did not want to take the hospital funds, but was faced with many difficult decisions in trying to balance his budget at a time when state tax revenue has declined.

"The money is just not there (for state government)," Burns said. "The budget is with the Legislature and they can restore funding to anything they want."

But he said they need to take the funds from "someplace else," since Gibbons will veto bills that would increase taxes.

Under the law passed in the 1980s, Nevada residents are assessed a 2.5 cent per $100 value property tax to provide health care to indigent people injured in accidents in their counties.

Nevada Hospital Association administrator Bill Welch said the funds are collected by the counties and then given to the state for placement in a special fund. The Nevada Association of Counties then applies for the funds, which are distributed on an annual basis to hospitals in all 17 counties.

Over the past three years, Welch said hospitals have received $76 million. They submitted $276 million in claims, however, which means they received back 27.5 percent of the cost of care they provided.

Rural Nevada Republican legislators, such as Assembly members Tom Grady of Yerington and Pete Goicoechea of Eureka, have been strong advocates of returning the funds to the hospitals.

Contact Review-Journal Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3901.