AP Day: Jose Oliva hungers for free market health care, hasn’t mellowed on smoking marijuana

House Speaker Jose Oliva says health care will soon overtake the majority of state spending if free market solutions aren’t introduced.

“The greater the government involvement in something,” Oliva said, “the less that there’s true free market, the less there’s competition, and the higher that price will go up.”

But he’s not ready yet to legalize the smoking of medical cannabis. While acknowledging the intense requirements on that industry don’t sound too laissez faire, lawmakers must regulate marijuana as a medicine, he said.

Oliva, speaking to reporters gathered in Tallahassee for the annual Associated Press legislative briefing, said the top budget expenditures this year will continue to be health care and higher education.

The common denominator? Government interference in the marketplace.

Keeping tuitions artificially low will continue to create pressure in Tallahassee, he said. And the same goes for health care subsidies.

“Allowing them to continue to increase at the rate that they are continuing is something not acceptable,” he said.

Oliva has stressed before that he wants greater free market influence on health care in Florida. And for years he’s argued against Medicaid expansion. “We don’t have to relive it,” he said. “We fought that battle twice.”

While some experts suggest an expansion would help get 800,000 uninsured Floridians covered, Oliva called that the “worst of all Band-Aids.”

“We are going to take a safety net program that is meant for a very select group of people, 160,000 of which in this state are eligible and don’t take advantage of but they get added to that larger 800,000,” he said, “but we’re going to take a form of health care that most doctors don’t accept, that reduces the quality the more people utilize it, and we’re going to find that it’s a solution to access to health care?

“You are charging us a tremendous amount for a service, rather than figure out, why is it you can charge us — it’s really price gouging so really why can you gouge us for these services? Rather than that, we would say let’s take more of the people’s money so that we can provide people access. It’s not working.”

Oliva lamented hospitals advertising short emergency room waits. “I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a true emergency,” Oliva said. “You’re not shopping.”

He said any government regulation of health care must focus instead on stopping price gouging.

“We did nothing to control the cost of health care,” he said. “All conversations around health care should center around cost, access and equality.”

Otherwise, it’s just special interest appeasement, he suggested.

But the House Speaker showed little appetite for reducing rules on medical marijuana, including easing restrictions on smoking prescribed cannabis rather than only allowing for extracts.

Oliva said a push for smokeable marijuana turns away from regulating the narcotic as a medicine. He noted marijuana remains one of few medications where doctors don’t heavily document the dosages patients intake. He also questioned whether smoking could ever be better for you.

“I’ve been in the smoke business me entire life,” said Oliva, whose family long operated Oliva Cigars.

“Is one to believe that an 8-year-old child should be smoking marijuana and inhaling smoke into their lungs? I’ve been in the smoke business my entire life, and I’ve never heard anyone say it’s good for you,” he said.

The reluctance comes after Gov. Ron DeSantis expressed interest in allowing smokable marijuana and demanded fast action from the Legislature on the issue.

DeSantis gave lawmakers until March 15 to act, just 10 days after the 2019 legislative session begins. The short timeline already injects uncertainty into the issue.

A bill has already been filed in the Senate to relax that restriction and Senate President Bill Galvano earlier in the day expressed confidence his chamber would take action, while noting the reasons for vertical business models currently in place.

But Galvano said the final version of legislation may not satisfy DeSantis.

“We will get something to the Governor by March 15. The question is will it be where he wants us to be,” the Senate president said.

Oliva said the House will act, too. But he doesn’t want a de facto legalization of recreational marijuana by allowing doctors to let patients smoke marijuana for “stress” or other conditions.

“The House position continues to be recreational marijuana is not something anyone voted for,” he said.

___

AP Day at the Capitol is hosted by The Associated Press. Several state leaders are slated to speak to media from across the state throughout the day. Check back for continued coverage.

The News Service of Florida contributed to this post.