A second transplant candidate denied coverage because of state budget cuts has died, and hospital officials say the cutbacks "likely" were to blame.

In Tucson, University Medical Center spokeswoman Jo Marie Gellerman said the patient died Dec. 28 at another medical facility. But she said UMC doctors believe he would have moved to the top of their waiting list because his condition had worsened.

"We believe that it's likely that they died because they were unable to get a transplant," she said.

The cuts, which took effect Oct. 1, were part of sweeping reductions that lawmakers imposed on state Medicaid services to help balance the budget.

Goodyear father Mark Price, a leukemia patient who needed a bone-marrow transplant, brought national attention to Arizona's budget crisis when he appealed for help. An anonymous donor came forward and a perfect match was found, but Price died Nov. 28 from complications of his disease before the procedure could be performed.

Several other gravely ill Arizonans pulled from transplant lists have since stepped forward and, along with local and national transplant providers, put pressure on Gov. Jan Brewer and legislators to restore the cuts.

Gellerman would not identify the UMC patient, citing federal privacy laws, but confirmed that he had hepatitis C, had been recommended for a liver transplant and was taken off the list when his coverage lapsed.

She said the sickest patients have a "good chance" of getting transplants and that "his disease had really gotten worse since he was taken off the list."

Benefit cuts to the 1.3 million adults enrolled in the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System included certain liver, bone marrow, heart, lung and pancreas transplants, as well as annual physicals, podiatry, insulin pumps and emergency dental care.

Savings are projected at $5.3 million this year, but the state is losing about $20 million in matching federal funds.

The transplants are considered optional under Medicaid rules and Arizona is the only state to have eliminated them.

Nearly 100 people lost transplant coverage Oct. 1. An estimated 15 percent of transplant patients eventually receive a donor organ, according to AHCCCS.

AHCCCS spokeswoman Monica Coury could not confirm the most recent death. But she said it would be difficult to determine whether the patient died because he didn't get the procedure.

"There are so many things that could be happening with a person on a wait list for an organ that could've caused them to pass away," she said.

She added that lawmakers had to weigh benefits to all AHCCCS members against those who might receive donor organs in the midst of deep budget shortfalls. Arizona faces a combined $2.25 billion deficit this year and next.

"We don't print money at AHCCCS. So we have to cover as many people as we can," Coury said. "Isn't it ultimately a question of what taxpayers are willing to pay for?"

Coury added that hospitals could choose to fund the procedures out of their charity budgets. AHCCCS still covers post-transplant care, she said, including anti-rejection medication.

Democrats are expected to introduce several bills this legislative session to restore the transplant cuts.

Brewer said Wednesday that she expects a robust debate, but added that the matter already had been vetted by the Legislature. Her office said later it had not confirmed that the liver patient was enrolled in AHCCCS.

AHCCCS says the cuts were recommended based on studies that showed they would affect the fewest people or, in the case of transplants, represented the least effective treatment. In patients infected with hepatitis C, studies say, the virus begins to re-infect the new liver within 24 hours of the transplant.

But medical experts argue that lawmakers and Brewer based their decision on flawed, outdated or incomplete data.

For example, new antiviral medications can cure patients of the virus and improve long-term survival rates, according to the American Society of Transplant Surgeons.

"It's very clear what happens to people when they don't get transplants. They die," said Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix.

Sinema said she will introduce two bills on the opening day of the legislative session Monday, one to restore the transplant coverage and another to pay for it by eliminating a tax credit offered to businesses for reporting their sales taxes, which would save an estimated $18 million.

An identical tax credit bill, sponsored by House Speaker Kirk Adams in a special budget-balancing last year, cleared the House on a 50-9 vote but got hung up in the Senate.