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With hundreds of millions of dollars — and the future of health care in the city — at stake, bidders vying to lease city-owned Memorial Health System pitched their proposals and panned their competitors in presentations Friday to the task force leading the leasing process.

All the systems put their best foot forward: Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System touted its financial strength and stability, HCA-HealthOne talked about quality and the tax benefits of leasing to a for-profit company, University of Colorado Hospital emphasized the high level of care it would add and its commitment to bringing a branch medical campus to Colorado Springs, Memorial Health System’s internal bid touted its ability to keep all of the hospital’s revenue and decision making local and Centura Health, the potential to collaborate with Memorial to reduce costs and improve care.

You can read synopses of the bids at gazette.com, or find the full proposals at springsgov.com, under the Memorial task force header.

Council President Pro Tem Jan Martin, who heads the task force, praised the depth of the proposals, but said she wasn’t ready to make up her mind.

“I’m not ready to lean one way or another,” she said.

However, Martin said, she thought it was interesting that several bidders expressed a preference for or a willingness to partner with an independent Memorial. Indeed, Centura’s bid was essentially a brief in favor of Memorial remaining independent, arguing that the two systems could produce better results through “coopetition” than an outside entity could bring to the city.

Centura CEO Gary Campbell, whose company runs Penrose-St. Francis Health Services, blasted the idea of the city getting a real return out of leasing Memorial to an outside company.

“The lease assumes that somebody is going to pay $350 million up front and $1 billion (in capital improvements) and there will be no impact on health care costs,” he said. “We disagree. In the immediate term, we’ll see a medical arms race, increased costs and layoffs at Memorial.”

The task force had some pointed questions of its own for Centura, with task force member Randy Purvis telling Campbell, “Yours is the most thought-provoking proposal, but it’s also the most aggravating. In many ways, it’s a non-responsive response.”

The independent Memorial proposal said that the new organization would pursue partnerships like some of the other proposals, but that the city will derive more value from a partnership of equals than it would by making Memorial an appendage of a larger system.

“The new Memorial will have a seat at the table instead of being served up on the table,” Memorial board chairman Jim Moore said.

Moore also emphasized that a new Memorial would get a new board who would pick their own CEO and leadership team.

Task force member Phil Lane questioned an independent Memorial’s ability to weather a financial crisis without outside support. Moore said that none of the bids offered true guarantees.

Asked about references other bids made to Memorial’s quality of care, Dr. Patrick Faricy, Memorial’s chief medical officer, said the system was committed to improving care, but said “The numbers are what they are, and they’re not high enough.”

Asked how an independent Memorial would deal with a potential $191 million liability to the state’s public employees pension plan, Moore said only that Memorial would accept all liabilities.

City councilman and task force member Tim Leigh said he was intrigued by the possibilities of HCA-HealthOne’s bid, which offered $500 million up front and promised $1 billion in capital improvements over the life of the lease.

“When they made their proposal, it really reminded me of being the 9th grade girl getting asked out by the captain of the football team,” Leigh said. “The scale is huge.”

HCA-HealthOne CEO Jeff Dorsey said Memorial’s city ownership was a recipe for failure, and he also panned making the hospital independent.

“The status quo will fail and a poor imitation of the status quo will also fail,” he said.

Task force members questioned HCA’s qualification that a sale of the entire HealthOne system, including a possible Memorial lease, would not be subject to City Council approval, and its plans to implement an integrated approach to medicine. Dorsey said the company approached each hospital differently and would work with doctors to come up with solutions.

Task force member Dr. David Corry asked what HCA’s commitment would be to raising Memorial’s emergency department to a level one status, the highest, and keep it in downtown. Dorsey said Memorial has the busiest emergency room in the state and that he couldn’t imagine it leaving downtown.

Leigh said picking a winning proposal to recommend to the full City Council by the end of the year would be tougher than he thought. City voters would have to approve any changes to Memorial’s governance.

City councilwoman and task force member Brandy Williams said the discussions made clear the importance of bringing a branch medical campus to Colorado Springs — something all of the proposals touched on, but which was the centerpiece of University of Colorado Hospital’s offer, including a promise of $3 million-a-year dedicated to the branch campus.

Kyle Hybl, chair of the University of Colorado board of regents and general counsel at the El Pomar Foundation, introduced UCH’s bid and emphasized the university’s support for it, while University of Colorado medical school dean Richard Krugman said the $3 million commitment was necessary to getting the branch campus accredited.

University of Colorado Hospital is forming a joint operating agreement with Fort Collins-based Poudre Valley Health System and a leased Memorial would strengthen the partnership, UCH CEO Bruce Schroffel said.

Asked how UCH would deal with Memorial’s pension liability, UCH chief financial officer Anthony DeFurio said it would likely simply pay off the liability, but would explore other possibilities, such as allowing employees to stay in the state system.

Asked if UCH would still be willing to partner with an independent Memorial and what the difference would be between a lease and a joint venture, Poudre Valley CEO Rulon Stacey said the partnership would continue to be very interested in affiliating with Memorial, but that a deep financial union was necessary to derive the full benefits of a partnership. DeFurio said the lease probably offers Colorado Springs more assurances, but said there would be a trade-off in terms of control.

Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System, which led off the day touted its financial health and bond rating as offering the city a solid partner for Memorial.

Asked about restrictions on reproductive services and end of life care, Sisters of Charity CEO Michael Slubowski said that, while those restrictions exist in his religiously sponsored system, they were often overblown because many of the sterilization services at issue are performed in outpatient clinics. He said that he didn’t see end-of-life services as an issue.

Asked about Sisters of Charity’s stated commitment to $100 million of capital investment at Memorial in the first five years of a lease, Slubowski said that was an “absolute floor.” Asked whether leasing Memorial would mean jobs leaving the city, Slubowski said his system was open to placing some central functions of the system in Colorado Springs.

Slubowski said Sisters of Charity would also be willing to partner with Memorial or the city through an affiliation or joint venture instead of a lease.

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Financial summary of Memorial bids

Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System

- $11 million annual lease payment for 40 years, a minimum of $100 million of capital investment into Memorial in the first five years. $1 million initially and $500,000 annually for public health needs. SCLHS said its lease payments would leave the city with approximately $194 million after paying off Memorial’s liabilities.

HCA-HealthOne

- $500 million up-front lease payment for 40-year lease, plus allowing the city to keep Memorial’s cash-on-hand, plus a promise of a minimum of $1billion of capital investment into Memorial over the life of the lease. HCA-HealthOne estimates roughly $325 million would remain after paying off liabilities.

Memorial Health System bid to create independent nonprofit

- $5 million up front and a variable annual payment based on the health system’s profits. The new Memorial would assume all of the hospital’s current liabilities, including a pension liability that could be as much as $191 million.

University of Colorado Hospital

- $74 million up front lease payment, a $5.6 million annual payment for 40 years, a $1.12 billion capital commitment over the life of the lease, plus a commitment of $3 million a year toward establishing a branch campus of the University of Colorado School of Medicine at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Also, UCH is offering a profit-sharing plan in which the city would get 5 percent of any profits above 8 percent, an estimated $151 million over the life of the lease. UCH would assume all of Memorial’s liabilities.

Centura Health

- Centura is not proposing to lease Memorial itself. Rather, it said it supports the independent nonprofit proposal, but presented a vision for extensive cooperation between the health systems and touted the community benefits for controlling costs and improving care.

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Town hall meeting with Memorial bidders

On Dec. 7, the task force will hold an “E-Town Meeting” in which the public can hear more about the bids and ask bidders questions at City Hall, 107 N. Nevada Ave. The meeting will last from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m and will be televised and streamed on springsgov.com.

People can submit questions in person, via e-mail at memorialtownhall@springsgov.com, or by calling 385-5961.

Centura Health will present at 1 p.m., University of Colorado Health System at 2:15 p.m., Memorial Health System at 3:30 p.m., HCA-HealthOne at 4:45 p.m. and Sisters of Charity Leavenworth Health System at 6 p.m.

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