Florida Gov’t Weekly Roundup: The Week The Legislature Stood Still

April 19, 2015

It was The Week the Legislature Stood Still.
http://www.northescambia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/floridaweeklly.jpgLawmakers acknowledged this week they almost certainly won’t get the budget done on time — by the scheduled May 1 conclusion of the legislative session — because of a health-care funding issue that state officials have known about for the past year. A quick round of finger-pointing ensued in an unusual four-way conflict that involved Gov. Rick Scott, the House, the Senate and the federal government, but that did little to solve the problem.

The two main parties to the squabble are the House and the Senate, which stand $4.2 billion apart, thanks largely to differences in how they handle the Low Income Pool, or LIP, program and the Senate’s proposal to use $2.8 billion in Medicaid expansion funds to help lower-income Floridians purchase private insurance. And as increasingly caustic remarks flew between the two Republican-controlled chambers, it was clear that the Era of Good Feelings (real or imagined) of the last two years was over.

Democrats worked to conceal any glee they might have over those developments by speaking of their disappointment.

“Apparently, we’ve got a train wreck, and those two locomotives are about ready to hit,” said House Minority Leader Mark Pafford, D-West Palm Beach.

And as the collision approached, the chambers slogged through schedules that had minimal impact. Dozens of bills were approved by the House, but few drew much attention. Members of the Senate Appropriations Committee endured a daylong meeting Thursday that was notable for how little true controversy was attracted by the legislation on the agenda.

Lawmakers weren’t quite adrift, but knowing that they wouldn’t complete the one constitutional requirement for the annual legislative session — and won’t have the bargaining power that the budget provides to reach agreement on other legislation — gave the events an air of going through the motions.

GIVING ME LIP

The discussions surrounding LIP, which provides money to hospitals and other health providers that serve large numbers of poor and uninsured patients, were already tense when a high-ranking official at the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services sent a letter Tuesday that set off a wave of recriminations. The letter suggested that continued funding for LIP, set to expire June 30, was tied to the state’s decision on Medicaid expansion.

CMS official Vikki Wachino wrote that “the state’s expansion status is an important consideration in our approach regarding extending the LIP beyond June.”

“We believe that the future of the LIP, sufficient provider rates, and Medicaid expansion are linked in considering a solution for Florida’s low income citizens, safety net providers and taxpayers,” Wachino wrote.

Any remaining comity between the two chambers disappeared. House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, responded to the letter by issuing a statement lambasting the federal government and the Senate.

“It is unthinkable that (the federal government) would leave our state on the hook for over a billion dollars simply because they want a specific policy outcome,” Crisafulli said. “We believe the Florida Senate has provided inaccurate and false hope to Washington, D.C., and has muddled negotiations. Let me be clear — the discussions about LIP and Medicaid expansion must be separate.”

Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, wrote a memo to senators predicting stark consequences — including the possibility of closed cancer centers or dialysis units — if the state didn’t get LIP or a health-care expansion done.

“The bottom line is: more than ever, today’s correspondence from CMS highlights the link between LIP and expansion and the need to consider a comprehensive Florida solution,” Gardiner wrote. “Time is of the essence. The Senate remains open to meeting at any time to discuss our free-market approach to expansion or any alternative the House or governor would like to propose.”

The next day, the head of the state agency that deals with Medicaid went before the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee for a confirmation hearing. Despite what ended up being an 8-1 vote in her favor, it was not smooth sailing for Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Liz Dudek.

Senators were skeptical of the contention that the agency was unaware that LIP funding and Medicaid expansion were tied together until the CMS letter arrived. Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, pointed to media reports that a letter sent to CMS by the state’s congressional delegation dated Tuesday — and asking that LIP and expansion be considered separately — was largely written on an AHCA computer well before.

“But yet weeks ago, a letter was crafted within the agency, and you asked members of the United States Congress to sign it, and if you didn’t have any understanding or prior notice that coverage expansion and LIP were linked, why go to all the trouble of getting a letter and circulating it around Congress?” Gaetz asked.

“We had heard — and there’s a lot of information that seems to go around through the grapevine — that they were considering that there might be a linkage,” she said after the meeting. “We wanted to make sure that they would support LIP regardless of what happened with expansion.”

Scott’s administration responded Thursday by saying the governor would file a lawsuit trying to force the feds to pay up.

Scott’s lawsuit would rely on a potentially novel interpretation of the 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upheld the federal Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare. In that case, NFIB v. Sebelius, the court ruled that the federal government couldn’t coerce states into expanding Medicaid by requiring any state that didn’t do so to give up all of its Medicaid funding.

The governor’s legal action would argue that the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is doing the same thing by linking LIP and Medicaid expansion.

“Our citizens already pay federal taxes that go into the federal LIP program,” Scott said in a statement announcing the action. “Now, President Obama has decided that the state must take on a larger Medicaid program, forcing our taxpayers to pay even more to government, before they get their own federal tax dollars back. This is outrageous, and specifically what the Supreme Court warned against.”

Even lawmakers who supported the governor’s suit conceded it won’t free up the money on time to fix the budget mess. And some questioned the wisdom of the move.

“That’s the governor’s prerogative, that’s the job of the executive, but I just don’t understand how that would help any negotiations,” said Sen. Rene Garcia, a Hialeah Republican who oversees health-care funding. “If you are trying to negotiate a deal on LIP with CMS, I just don’t understand why you would sue the federal government in the middle of negotiations.”

THE OTHER FEDERAL NEWS

Maybe negotiations with the federal government will go more smoothly if one of the state’s favorite sons — former Gov. Jeb Bush or U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio — manages to capture the Republican presidential nomination and the White House. This week, Rubio announced what pretty much everyone already knew: He’s running.

“Before us now is the opportunity to author the greatest chapter yet in the amazing story of America,” Rubio said. “But we can’t do that by going back to the leaders and ideas of the past. We must change the decisions we are making by changing the people who are making them.”

It was a none-too-subtle shot at former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and perhaps Bush, both of whom have been around longer than the 43-year-old Rubio and both of whom share last names with former presidents.

The announcement, which Rubio has said will keep him from seeking a second term in the Senate, set of a frenzy of activity among the state’s politicos. The top contender for Rubio’s seat, state Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater, had taken his name out of the running over the weekend. Congressmen and state lawmakers like Gaetz were among those considering runs for the GOP Senate nomination.

Leading Democrats have already begun uniting behind Congressman Patrick Murphy, a moderate, but Congressman Alan Grayson, a liberal firebrand, is looking likely to make a run as well.

GLASS HALF FULL

There was some actual activity on policy around the state Capitol.

Scott signed a wide-ranging bill aimed at rolling back the number of tests given to public school students, one of the highest-profile measures of the session, following up on weeks of legislative wrangling and his own campaign promise to review the level of testing in schools.

“I agree with many teachers and parents who say we have too many tests, and while this legislation is a great step forward, we will keep working to make sure Florida students are not over tested,” Scott said in a statement issued by his office.

The legislation (HB 7069) puts a hold on the use of student test data for school grades, teacher evaluations and student promotion to fourth grade until the new Florida Standards Assessments can be independently validated. It also scraps a law requiring school districts to come up with end-of-course tests in classes where the state doesn’t administer such exams; caps the amount of time students can spend on state and school district tests at 45 hours a year; and reduces the portion of a teacher’s evaluation tied to student performance from the current 50 percent to one-third.

The Senate approved a bill that would restore a popular adoption-subsidies program — while repealing a 38-year-old law that banned gay adoption. The measure (HB 7013), passed on a 27-11 vote. Its main purpose was to provide cash incentives to state workers who adopt children in Florida’s foster-care system, especially children with special needs.

But the bill the Senate passed Tuesday also included an unanticipated and controversial provision added by the House last month: a formal end to the gay-adoption ban.

Sen. Tom Lee, a Brandon Republican who voted against the bill, took issue with the House move to add the repeal to the incentives bill.

“This is a valid issue,” Lee said of the debate about the ban. “It should stand alone,” adding that it shouldn’t “hijack a piece of legislation that was supposed to be a feel-good moment for this Legislature and divide senators.”

Gaetz agreed that the term “hijacked” was a fair description. However, he said, “If I thought for one minute that I was imperiling the welfare or the upbringing or the life of any child with anything in this bill, I’d lead the floor fight against it. But there is no evidence anywhere, by anybody, that anything in this bill will do anything other than give children a chance for their dreams to come true.”

The dreams of lawmakers, lobbyists and reporters were more modest than those of children. It was a dream of a session that wraps up before June.

STORY OF THE WEEK: The budget process was left in a shambles amid a deepening conflict between Gov. Rick Scott, the House, the Senate and the federal government about what to do with health-care funding.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Throw Dinah the bone. Please put your paw on the green button.”—A flyer being distributed by Lisa Miller, a lobbyist, who is trying to get the Legislature to add animals to a research component included in a Senate medical-marijuana proposal (SB 7066). Miller believes marijuana could help her dog, Dinah.

by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida

Comments

Comments are closed.

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News