Health spending prioritized

Health and Human Services 2009 spending priorities were shuffled and reshuffled Wednesday afternoon by lawmakers rushing to make today's final recommendation deadline.

Final pitches for spending packages totaling about $42 million — $34 million for the health department and $8 million for human services — significantly altered the spending plan developed in hearings the past two weeks.

Protecting the health of Utah infants and children, helping parents deal with a disabled newborn, money for a new autism registry and more money for Utahns covered by Medicaid and physicians who treat them emerged as the top health department priorities by the end of the day.

Funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program is in the Top 10 as well as a long-sought restoration of adult dental services for those covered by Medicaid.

Gathering new public health data and improving the department's ability to assess and share data statewide moved from middle of the pack to become the top one-time spending priority and the ninth most important among in ongoing expenditures in the 2009 fiscal year.

"Our mission is to protect the public," Dr. David Sundwall, executive director of the state health department, told members of the Joint Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee. "As such, my No. 1 priority is to keep the public out of harm's way, but it's always a bit of a hard sell because we've been so good at it that people tend to forget how important that effort is."

A $350,000 ongoing appropriation for beginning a new registry for Utah's rapidly increasing and so far unexplained rate of children with autism or autistic-type behavioral problems is also a top priority. Gov. Jon Huntsman proposed the registry, which was supported by dozens of parents of autistic children who lined up Monday afternoon to urge the committee to support the registry.

Physicians who treat Medicaid patients would get about a 10 percent reimbursement rate under the priority plan drafted Wednesday. The increase, which lawmakers hope will make treating Medicaid patients more attractive to more doctors, amounts to $4.5 million total for 2009 and is likely the first of a total 30 percent increase doctors have requested over the next three years. Physicians are reimbursed at about 40 percent of normal charges for services.

A $100,000 proposal is included for education and outreach programs to help curb the number of deaths for prescription drug overdoses, which in Utah has surpassed the number of annual deaths from automobile crashes. About 400 autopsies were conducted by the medical examiner's office the past year, and 350 of those were listed as prescription medication overdose, according to health department figures.