Utah's legislative leadership plans to have the 15 members of a newly created health care task force selected within the next several weeks and ready to meet as early as April.

Established through legislation as the result of a divisive debate over Intermountain Health Care's tax-exempt status and its delivery of health care, the task force comes with $300,000 in funding — one of the largest price tags to accompany a study group.

"Never in my 17 years at the Legislature have we had a task force with that kind of funding," said Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem. "But it is so unique because it really charts the future of health care in Utah."

Valentine is hopeful the $300,000 will help bring in expertise outside of Utah — such as one of the top CPA firms that has accounting experience related to national health care issues.

"We didn't want to not have the money available to hire outside consultants and experts to look at this," he said. "If you stay just within the state, those people will be perceived as having a bias either for or against IHC."

Members of legislative management will draft the criteria for the financial purview it hopes to be accomplished and then select the consultants or experts after bids are solicited.

The task force will include six members from the Senate, with no more than four from the same political party, and nine members from the House, with no more than seven from the same political party.

Among other things, the two-year task force will examine:

• IHC's contracting arrangements in health insurance and health care markets.

• IHC's tax-exempt status.

• Business and financial practices and their impact on consumers and the marketplace.

The task force grew out of the effort by Sen. Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, to get legislation passed that would have levied a 3 percent gross-receipts tax on IHC.

Although Waddoups' bill died in the resulting donnybrook, IHC and legislative leadership signed off on a memorandum of understanding that resulted in the task force.

"This will be a fairly in-depth analysis, and money well spent," said House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy. "It is a significant policy issue, and before we make decisions on insurance and the delivery of medical services which have the potential to affect every citizen in this state, we better make sure we get the best information possible."

Curtis said he sent a letter to members of the House asking them to indicate on which task force they would prefer to serve. (Four were approved during the 2005 session, and one remains a carryover from the year before.)

He said he plans to meet with House Minority Leader Ralph Becker, D-Salt Lake, to get recommendations from him for committee membership.

Becker said by the time the IHC issue got to the House, "all the blood had been let on it" and agreement reached as to the nature of the study group, which will have the advantage of deliberation over the course of two interim periods.

"I would hope that we would have people on the task force who don't come to it with predisposed conclusions, who are able to look objectively at the issues and arrive at decisions that are in the best interest of the state."

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E-mail: amyjoi@desnews.com