Medicaid contract wrangling begins.

Byline: Patricia Guthrie TRIBUNE REPORTER

HMOs are lining up, bids ready, for the largest state procurement ever -- the $800 million Medicaid managed-care contract.

Bids being submitted today for the state's largest procurement ever -- the $800 million Medicaid managed-care contract -- may also be the heftiest bids to hit Santa Fe bureaucrats' desks.

"We probably took out several trees putting this bid together, maybe we even clear-cut a forest or two," said former Gov. Garrey Carruthers, president of Cimarron HMO, one of four private health-care companies vying for the state's Medicaid patients.

Presbyterian Health Plan, Lovelace Health Systems and HMO New Mexico also want the state contract.

Earlier this month, all submitted details on how they would serve the state's 240,000 Medicaid recipients. Today, their asking prices are due.

One company's thousands of …