Christine Jordan Sexton
Borrowing the governor’s often-used slogan “let’s get to work” House Democrats on Thursday said it’s time for House Republicans and Gov. Rick Scott to work on finding a solution to the impasse on health care that has brought the 2015 legislative session to a grinding halt.
At an early morning press conference on Thursday House minority leader Mark Pafford said House Democrats are ”ready to work” but that the governor “is a guy that cant spend time in Tallahassee actually dealing with the health care crisis.”
“We need a governor right now that is going to act,” Pafford said, “Floridians are demanding leadership and it’s clearly not happening.”
Joining Pafford were Reps. Mia Jones and Rep. Amanda Murphy.
Echoing the sentiments of Senate President Andy Gardiner and Senate Appropriations Chairman Tom Lee, Jones expressed frustration that the Legislature did not address the pending elimination of Low Income Pool dollars though the state had been put on notice last year that the funds would be eliminated.
LIP are supplemental Medicaid dollars that are used to help fund hospitals that treat the uninsured. The money also is used to fund graduate medical education, federally qualified health centers and HMOs.
“There should have been time put into making sure we were addressing this issue,” Jones said of the looming elimination of LIP.
House and Senate leaders acknowledged on Wednesday that the 2015 legislative session will not be completed on time because of an impasse on health care spending and the use of federal health care dollars in the Senate budget to expand Medicaid and to continue the LIP program. Because of the federal dollars the chambers are more than $4 billion apart on their spending plans.
The Senate has proposed a Medicaid expansion called FHIX (SB 7044), which would expand Medicaid under the federal health care law and put for the first year all new enrollees into the Medicaid managed care plans that now operate. The bill is supported business giant Associated Industries of Florida and has many conservative principles, such as work requirements and requirements for co-payments and deductibles. The plan would still need federal approval and AHCA Secretary Liz Dudek testified yesterday that it’s likely the federal government would hve problems with some of the provisions.
Murphy and Jones both noted that while the House Republicans criticize the current Medicaid program for being broken, it was a system that was reformed under the leadership of the Florida House and championed by House Republicans. Under the mandatory Medicaid managed care system people are placed into providers sponsored networks or Medicaid HMOs, most of which are private for profit companies.
Leader Pafford said there is an “incredible opportunity” for the House to “show leadership” and allow the Senate Medicaid expansion bill to be brought to the floor and a “free vote” to be taken.
“There are 25 Republicans who are willing to do the right thing,” Pafford said.
