Phil Ammann
Florida lawmakers will be getting busy in Tallahassee starting March 3, which kicks off the spectacle of the 2015 legislative session.
State lawmakers, as they face hot-button issues ranging from the budget and child welfare to water, gambling and guns, will have one item in abundance, at least according to Florida Politics editorial cartoonist Bill Day.
Hot air – a hurricane of hot air, in fact.
For the next 60 days, both the House and Senate will take up a full range of matters: standardized testing in public schools, fixing the state’s prison system and (possibly) legalizing medical marijuana. Beyond the Charlotte’s Web law passed last year, which still awaits implementation.
Of course, there is the single must-pass bill of every session — the Florida budget – expected to clock in at roughly $77 billion. That bill will include a particular challenge; that is filling the billion-dollar gap left by expiration of the state’s “Low Income Pool,” or LIP, set to expire on June 30 without renewal by the federal government.
The feds use LIPs to reimburse hospitals for treating poor and uninsured patients.
Gov. Rick Scott, in unveiling his proposed $77 billion budget last month, anticipated LIP money would be in place.
Apparently, it will not.
“Not in its present form,” said Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services director Eliot Fishman, whose department oversees the LIP to various state Medicaid programs.
For a gaping budgetary hole — $1.3 billion — Scott and other hot-air Republican legislators can thank their stubborn refusal to accept federal funding for Medicare expansion under the Affordable Care Act, which was designed to replace the LIP.
With that, Tallahassee is certain to be the front of a Category 5 hot wind political hurricane this year … so stay tuned.
