The Florida Senate’s FHIX (Florida Health Insurance Affordability Exchange) is not getting much praise from Gov. Rick Scott and Florida House Speaker Steve Crisafulli.
Senate President Andy Gardiner has pitched FHIX as a way to make hospitals whole in light of the federal government’s decision to reduce a program known as the Low Income Pool from $2.2 billion this year to $1 billion in the next budget year, which begins July 1. The so-called “LIP” program sends money to hospitals and other medical providers that care for large numbers of low-income patients. This past year, Sacred Heart received $4.4 million in LIP funds and Baptist $546,886.
The FHIX plan, which includes a work requirement for recipients, would require the state to get a waiver from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The new Senate bill would also require any “significant changes” made to the waiver by federal officials to be approved by the Legislature before the plan takes effect.
The Senate made the proposal just days before Monday’s scheduled start of a special session to reach a budget agreement that eluded lawmakers during the spring regular session.
Scott and House leaders see the Senate plan as merely moving the state under the federal Affordable Care Act, commonly known as “Obamacare.” They are against anything that might be perceived as Obamacare.
However, uninsured Floridians have embraced Obamacare. Florida had 983,775 people sign up for coverage last year, the highest 2014 enrollment among states using HealthCare.gov and the fourth highest percentage of eligible individuals using the marketplace to purchase affordable health insurance.
Obamacare helped drop Escambia County’s percentage of uninsured citizens from 21 percent to 16 percent. The first drop in two decades.
Still Scott resists the Senate plan.
“A budget that keeps Florida’s economy growing will cut taxes and give Floridians back more of the money they earn, not inevitably raise taxes in order to implement Obamacare and grow government,” Scott said in a statement issued by his office.
House Speaker Steve Crisafulli said the FHIX work requirements are unlikely to be approved by federal officials.
“When you remove the Senate’s ‘conservative guardrails’ that the Obama administration fundamentally opposes, all you are left with is a costly and inefficient entitlement program to serve able-bodied working age adults with no children,” Crisafulli said.
From the Right Wing: Americans for Prosperity – Florida’s Chris Hudson: “Senator Gardiner keeps insisting on putting lipstick on a pig in order to call his FHIX plan something other than Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. But the senate’s latest attempt to expand Medicaid is just that, more government-run health care. This isn’t a compromise. They are just dressing up a failed model from other states and hoping it sticks.”
Our May 28 cover story will cover this issue. It will go live online at 4 p.m.
Here is some irony: Scott often claims that expanding Medicaid to cover those who work but barely live above poverty would cost the state $5 billion over 10 years. Not coming of with an expansion plan could cost the state $1.2 billion this next year if it maintains the LIP funding at projected level. Not doing anything is definitely more expensive