Florida Phoenix
A House budget committee wants to slash a 10-year, $500 million health innovation loan program and a 15-member Council charged with recommending how to spend the money.
The House Health Care Budget Committee released a 12-page proposed budget conforming bill late Monday night, in advance of releasing its proposed health care spending blueprint for Fiscal Year 2024-25. The bill makes additional conforming changes to the state Medicaid program meant to help implement the proposed health care budget.
Specifically, PCB HC 25-01 eliminates a recently enacted law championed by Sen. Gayle Harrell that was considered part of former Senate President Kathleen Passidomo’s “Live Healthy” initiative, a multipronged approach to bolstering the state’s health care workforce and infrastructure to provide for an aging population.
Passed in 2024, Harrell’s SB 7018 created the 10-year revolving loan program within the Department of Health (DOH). The law directs the state’s Chief Financial Officer to appropriate $50 million to the DOH annually to fund the loan program, meaning the program would receive $500 million in state funds over its lifetime.
Harrell told the Florida Phoenix Tuesday that she was surprised by the move and was “not happy.”
“I’m seriously concerned about it. I don’t think it is appropriate to do that. We just passed it last year. It’s going to take several years for the Innovation Council to be up and running. We’re just starting to get the first look at the kinds of things that are really going to change the state.”
When asked if she thought it was being eliminated because of the hefty state commitment Harrell replied: “It’s an investment, and it’s going to change the direction of health care through innovation.”
The goal was to provide low-interest loans to applicants to implement one or more innovative technologies, workforce pathways, or service delivery models that:
— Increase efficiency in the delivery of health care.
— Reduce the strain on the health care workforce.
— Increase public access to health care.
— Improve patient outcomes.
— Reduce unnecessary emergency department visits.
— Reduce costs for patients and the state without reducing the quality of patient care.
SB 7018 also declared legislative intent to “harness the innovation and creativity of entrepreneurs and businesses, together with the state’s health care system and stakeholders.”
A 15-member Health Care Innovation Council was established in the DOH and charged with making recommendations to the Department for the administration of the loans. Among the Council members are the Lieutenant Governor, who serves as the Chair, the Secretaries of the Agency for Health Care Administration, the Department of Children and Families, and the Department of Elderly Affairs; the Director of the Agency for Persons with Disabilities; the state Surgeon General; and the Chair of the Council of Florida Medical School Deans, among others.
According to a staff analysis of the budget conforming bill, the Health Care Innovation Council has met twice since its inception and its last meeting was Nov. 19.
The House budget conforming bill also makes changes to the Casey DeSantis Cancer Research Program, requiring it to consider specialty hospitals for children when awarding cancer research grants. The proposed budget bill doesn’t make the broad changes to cancer funding that the Gov. Ron DeSantis administration has called for.
