House offers Senate $600 million to walk away from Medicaid expansion

The House has rejected the Senate’s proposal to extend the session until June 30. Instead, on Friday it increased its offer to $600 million in contingency funding to pad the loss of supplemental Medicaid funding if the Senate would back away from its push to expand Medicaid to low-income working Floridians.

The money would draw down $900 million in federal matching funds.

The contingency funds would kick in after the state hears back from the federal government about how much Low Income Pool money Florida can expect, the House stated in a written offer to the Senate that was released to the news media.

“To the degree that federal funds are approved, the contingency funds can automatically be used for other agreed-upon priorities,” House Speaker Steve Crisafulli said in a prepared statement. “Further, we believe an automatic extension to June 30 is unnecessary, and we can begin negotiations as early as this weekend and accomplish our work in a manner that will not incur costs to Florida taxpayers associated with an unnecessarily protracted extended Session,”

The House offer is the third exchange the chambers have had in the past  24-hour period.