Christine Jordan Sexton
A last-minute gambit to save a Medicaid managed care bill is now underway as the Florida Senate tagged a strike-all amendment to a Medicaid managed care rewrite pushed by the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Two days after Senate President Wilton Simpson said SB 1950 would not be considered, bill sponsor Sen. Jason Brodeur filed the amendment to return the Senate bill back to the version that passed the Senate on March 3 by a 39-0 vote. There is one difference though: the strike-all amendment does not include language regarding how the state automatically assigns Medicaid beneficiaries who don’t voluntarily choose a health plan.
Florida legislators in 2011 mandated a rewrite of the state’s Medicaid statutes, requiring most beneficiaries to enroll in a managed care plan. In 2013, the Medicaid managed long-term care program was launched. The Medicaid managed medical assistance program, which provides services to women and children, followed in 2014.
Current law requires the Medicaid contracts to be competitively bid in 11 regions in the state. Winning health plans are awarded multiyear contracts worth tens of billions of dollars. AHCA wants to eliminate the mandate for regional bids. It also wants to reconfigure the Medicaid regions. The agency wanted to trim the number of regions from 11 to eight, but the Senate bill rearranges the regions from 11 to nine.
Florida’s existing Medicaid managed care contracts expire on Dec. 31, 2024, which means that AHCA wants to start the process to solicit new contracts. Because of that, AHCA asked this year to change current law, including a requirement that the state issue separate bids for each Medicaid region.
The House earlier this week tagged its own version of the Medicaid managed care bill onto SB 1950 and sent it back to the Senate for consideration. The House bill is controversial because it requires “essential providers” to enter into regional or statewide contracts with those Medicaid managed care plans. The state is required by Jan. 1 to withhold any supplemental payments from essential providers that do not have all the mandated contracts signed.
Simpson told reporters on Wednesday evening that the legislation “was definitely in trouble.” He added that “we’re not going to hear it.”
