The Utah Legislature has begun targeting dental and medical clinics that provide health services to Medicaid patients in its efforts to close the state's budget gap, according to a story in the Salt Lake Tribune.
The Legislature, which is trying to trim $9.8 million from the Utah Department of Health budget, has mandated the closure of Provo's Health Clinic of Utah, which is run by the Utah Health Department and provides medical and dental care to patients on Medicaid.
The closure will save the state $146,000, the Tribune reported.
"If the state couldn't manage to run it like a private office without a subsidy, we probably ought to close it," Sen. Allen Christensen (R-Ogden), DDS -- a pediatric dentist -- said in trying to explain the cut.
With the Legislature's blessing, the health department may trim the budgets of the other medical and dental clinics it runs in Ogden, Salt Lake City, and St. George. Those clinics are also subsidized by the state, at a cost of almost $933,000 in the last fiscal year, according to the Tribune.
