Christine Jordan Sexton
Time is ticking and Florida’s long-term care providers have until 11:59 p.m. tonight to tell the federal government if they want to take advantage of free COVID-19 vaccinations when they become available.
The Donald Trump administration announced in October that it had inked agreements with Walgreens and CVS to provide the yet-to-be approved COVID-19 vaccinations free of charge to residents ages 65 and older and staff. Nursing home providers must sign up for the vaccinations through the National Healthcare Safety Network website. Assisted-living facilities must sign up for the vaccinations using a form that’s available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The sign-up is mandatory but not binding; providers that indicate they want the shots can cancel later. However, facilities that do not sign up by the Nov. 6 deadline won’t be given another opportunity, according to the CDC.
Trump announced the agreement with the two major drugstore chains while campaigning in Florida. He touted the arrangement by saying he was “moving heaven and earth to safeguard our seniors from the China virus, to deliver life-saving therapies in record time and to distribute a safe and effective vaccine before the end of the year.”
With the Nov. 3 election behind us (sort of), incoming Trilby Republican Wilton Simpson, who will serve as Senate President, and incoming House Speaker Chris Sprowls, a Palm Harbor Republican, released some details about their new administrations, including information about leadership posts. Simpson announced on Friday that Fernandina Beach Republican Sen. Aaron Bean would become Senate President Pro Tempore.
The move sends a strong signal that Lakeland Republican Sen. Kelli Stargel could be appointed chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, a powerful position that both she and Bean had sought. Bean has been in charge of helping craft the Senate’s health-care spending policies since his first election to the Senate in 2012. Bean also chaired the House’s health-care spending committee before joining the Senate.
Meanwhile, Sprowls has announced some members of his leadership team. Panama City Republican Rep. Jay Trumbull will chair the House Appropriations Committee; no subcommittee chairs have been named. More state dollars are spent on health and human services spending than any other portion of the budget, but Trumbull has no appropriations experience in that area. As a freshman in 2014, however, he filed a bill that would have defined “usual and customary charges” for Medicaid billing purposes. And Trumbull in 2018 shepherded a redesign of Florida’s trauma system through the Legislature.
After his success with the trauma legislation, Trumbull took a break from health care, and hasn’t served on any health care committee for the last two years.
Republican Rep. Colleen Burton of Lakeland has been named House Health & Human Services Committee chairwoman.
Sprowls also announced this week that he is establishing a new committee that will be directed to look at the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and plan for the future. More here.
Speaking of plans for the future, both Sprowls and Simpson both unveiled details surrounding the Nov. 17 organization session and the rules lawmakers and visitors will follow in Tallahassee. More here.
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Republished with permission of The News Service of Florida.
