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My number-one priority in health care is still my Healthcare Trust Fund bill. This was originally proposed by the entire freshman class and presented to the speaker in a letter. It has since been presented to the Insurance and Real Estate Committee; I had the opportunity to draft the bill myself with the legislative attorney for the committee.

The bill no longer appropriates any funds from the biennial budget. Due to the constraints of the budget and because I did not want to compete with other proposals, I designated only surplus funds from the '07 budget and appropriated funds from the Rainy Day Fund. The bill now designates $250 million in surplus funds and $250 million in Rainy Day funds. I also intercept $100 million dollars from the tobacco settlement and deposit it into the Healthcare Trust Fund every year for the next 20 years.

Shouldn't we use money intended for health care prevention for health care instead of paving roads and other general fund expenditures? The annual deposits of the money are copied out of a financial planner's strategy that would be used to invest in a mutual fund account. It's called dollar cost averaging. I presented to the committee an 8 percent and a 10 percent return on the money.

On the day the Insurance Committee voted, two of my freshman colleagues told me the committee voted favorably and would send the bill onto the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee. Unfortunately, while I was hearing testimony on the Compassionate Care Bill (some thoughts on that in the next article), a friend of mine who is an aide to the majority leader's office pulled me from the hearing and told me the vote on my bill was tied. I was in shock, because I had been informed the vote was already favorable. However it turns out the vote was party line against, and then three Democrats had voted against the bill and one Democrat had not voted.

It was 3:15 pm ; the vote was held open till 4 pm. The Democrat who had not voted was chairing another committee dealing with the In State Tuition bill, which was being filibustered by the Republicans.

I did not know this particular chair well enough to ask for her vote and interrupt her proceedings. Of the three Democrats who voted no, I really knew only one relatively well. He was a veteran and more conservative on this particular issue. I went to the fourth floor looking for his office and ran into Rep. Hurlburt, another freshman. I told him the situation, and we both went off seeking our veteran legislator's vote.

We appeared at the legislators' office and it was vacant. Rep. Hurlburt said we should check with his aide; we both went scurrying about seeking her out figuring she might know where to find him. He was in the Energy and Technology Committee public hearing.

We traveled two floors down. While I stood at the door, Rep. Hurlburt proceeded to whisper in our colleague's ear that we needed him outside. Our colleague came to the hallway knowing what was about to take place. We made our case for the bill and asked that he let it live another day. Our colleague joked to a lobbyist that he was getting strongarmed by a couple of freshman.

After some jousting and jokes we three proceeded to walk to the Insurance clerk's office where he changed his vote from a no to a yes. The final vote at 4 p.m. was 10-9. The freshman Healthcare Trust Fund bill was to live another day.