Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 14, 1992 TAG: 9202140231
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BONNIE V. WINSTON and
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
WILDER LOSES ON `SICK TAX'
Gov. Douglas Wilder's plan to tax hospitals, doctors and nursing homes was delivered an apparent death blow Thursday when the House of Delegates returned it to a committee that technically can take no action.The move, on a voice vote, opened an estimated $60 million hole in the state's 1992-94 budget. House Speaker Thomas Moss, D-Norfolk, and other lawmakers suggested that the gap might by closed by increasing the state's lowest-in-the-nation cigarette tax.
Several tax bills, including one that would allow Roanoke County to increase its tax on cigarettes, are up for consideration by the House today and could be amended to apply statewide.
The governor had stumped the state and bombarded the media with daily tales of outrageous hospital charges and profits, and had demanded the tax as a modest contribution by the industry to the care of the poor.
Wilder shrugged off the House's action, insisting that the fight may not be over.
"I have seen Lazarus in so many forms," he said.
Wilder also accused the hospital lobby of buying legislators' support.
"Any number of them have said privately they received contributions from these people and they didn't want to see it affect their elections," Wilder said. Doctors and hospitals and their associations contributed more than $265,000 to the campaigns of House members last year.
Laurens Sartoris, executive director of the Virginia Hospital Association, bristled at the governor's suggestion.
"There is little connection between PAC [political action committee] contributions and votes or proposals," Sartoris said. "The politician we've given the most money to over time is Doug Wilder."
He said the association contributed $9,500 to Wilder's gubernatorial campaign and $7,500 for his inaugural.
The $60 million - to have been generated by a gross receipts tax on hospitals and nursing homes, and by collecting $250 annually from the state's physicians - would have been used to help pay for the state's Medicaid program for low-income Virginians.
A Senate committee had rejected the plan Wednesday.
The well-orchestrated House action came on the heels of a 90-minute recess and a Democratic caucus. When lawmakers returned, Del. Leslie Byrne, D-Falls Church, asked that the bill be re-referred to the House Finance Committee, which under House rules cannot take it up again.
Byrne had been absent from the Finance Committee meeting on Wednesday in which the bill was sent to the floor in a 10-9 vote. She claimed later that her absence was not deliberate, as several Republicans suggested.
She used the absence as the basis for a request that the bill be returned to committee for full consideration. By using a voice vote to send back the bill, the House members avoided a roll-call vote.
The governor criticized Byrne for not voting in committee and the House as a whole for basking in anonymity.
"The people of Virginia are entitled to see their representatives go up on the board, take a position, let people know who they represent," Wilder said.
While there was a chance the bill could be brought back or grafted to another tax measure, several delegates said other methods of generating the $60 million are more likely.
One, a bill to allow a 5-cents-a-pack increases in the cigarette taxes in Roanoke County and Prince William County, could be amended to statewide application, several lawmakers said.
Another bill, sponsored by Del. Richard Cranwell, D-Vinton, would raise an estimated $26 million over two years by charging state sales tax on alcohol sold at Virginia ABC stores. The bill dedicates the revenue to the state Medicaid program.
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