Becker plays huge role in bill that saves rural Colorado hospitals

    Quietly and more behind-the-scenes than was known at the time, Republican Rep. Jon Becker of Fort Morgan may have played the most significant role among its sponsors to make sure a bill saving rural Colorado hospitals made it to the finish line.
    When the deal was closer to falling apart than coming together, Becker didn’t give up, according to Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg of Sterling, the new law’s Republican Senate sponsor.
    Becker and his House co-sponsor, House Majority Leader K.C. Becker of Boulder (no relation), held marathon daily sessions in the final two weeks before the agreement was finally nailed down, often working late nights on the bill’s ideas.
    The bill came perilously close to collapse May 1, just nine days before the session would end, after Sonnenberg, who believed an agreement had been made, told reporters the deal was ready to go, only to be interrupted by an aide who passed him a note that said the deal was off.
    A frustrated Sonnenberg, who moments later was headed to a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing where he intended to kill the bill, had to be talked into allowing negotiations, then being handled by Jon Becker, to continue.
    “This deal would not have been completed without the work of Jon Becker,” Sonnenberg told this reporter after the bill passed. “When I got frustrated, he took the reins and drove it past the finish line.”
    The new law, signed by Gov. John Hickenlooper May 30, moves the state’s hospital provider fee program into a government-owned business, or enterprise. The provider fee program, which annually brings in more than $1 billion, helps cover Medicaid and unreimbursed health care costs for low-income Coloradans. Hospitals pay a fee to the state based on the number of outpatient visits and overnight patient stays. That’s then matched by federal dollars.

The full article is available in our e-Edition. Click here to subscribe.