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Scott Signs Medicaid Bill; Escambia Could Lose $6 Million
March 30, 2012
Gov. Rick Scott signed a contentious Medicaid billing measure late Thursday, angering counties that will have to pay tens of millions of dollars in disputed health-care charges that have piled up for years.
The bill is expected to cost Escambia County about $6 million, while Santa Rosa Count is expected to be out over $600,000.
And the bill will also impact patients, limiting the number of times that non-pregnant adults on Medicaid can visit a hospital emergency room to six a year.
Scott said the Agency for Health Care Administration would work with counties to soften HB 5301.
But the most contentious part of the measure will require counties to pay back years of disputed Medicaid bills unless they can prove to an administrative judge that the bills were unwarranted.
Counties argue that the state should fix its bill system, which they say is plagued with errors, before using the withholding mechanism in the bill to force counties to pay 85 percent of bills that might or might not be valid. Lawmakers who supported the measure said they should have been paying their bills all along.
The counties would have three years to pay back the money, at a cost of about $77.5 million, according to the state; the Florida Association of Counties argues that the measure will cost governments nearly $155.6 million.
“I respectfully acknowledge the concern this provision may create for some counties,” Scott wrote in a letter announcing his signature. ” … To that end, I have pledged to the counties that AHCA and my staff will work diligently with them to certify that any billings for which counties are charged are accurate and valid.”
Scott also said AHCA officials will visit every county in the state to talk about problems with the billing system.
Even so, FAC President Doug Smith issued a statement blasting the move.
“While we appreciate the Governor’s commitment to certify accurate billings, the bottom line is that H.B. 5301 makes those errors the law of the land, leaving taxpayers on the hook for Tallahassee’s multi-million dollar accounting mess,” Smith said. “This bill represents the very worst in bureaucratic inefficiency and serves as a splendid example of what taxpayers resent about government.”
Smith said the counties were “considering all of our options” in responding to the law. He did not elaborate on what those options might include.
The bill also allows the children of state workers to get subsidized health care coverage through the KidCare system.
The News Service Florida contributed to this report.
Comments
20 Responses to “Scott Signs Medicaid Bill; Escambia Could Lose $6 Million”
REGARDING:
“But what if it is a creatures nature to mindlessly reproduce? if God created a creature a certain way, then that is the way it is, anything else, would be prejudice, to that creature’s nature?
If we’re assuming the Lord’s will, then we will have to accept His order to have dominion over the world. That would include some form of conscious control. After all, you can’t have control if you have no idea what you wish to accomplish.
If we don’t assume the Lord’s will, then we still have to accept the idea that it is up to us to control ourselves.
Either way, wise choices are in order.
David for reason
REGARDING:
“I personally know of several “families” where the man and woman are not legally married. The man holds down a well paying job while the woman sits home having one baby after another. She files for a single unwed mother and receives Medicaid as well as SSI checks for herself and each child.”
Let’s be honest. She ISN’T married.
The fellow has expressed no interest in supporting his lady friend or his offspring. He hasn’t accepted any form of responsibility. Anything he does good is just out of whatever goodness is in his heart.
He can up and leave at any time and likely will. He may not even be supporting them in any way, rather it is possible he’s taking what she’s given so that she’s poorer than she would be if he weren’t even around at all.
David for loving parents
But what if it is a creatures nature to mindlessly reproduce. I would imagine if God created a creature a certain way, then that is the way it is, anything else, would be prejudice, to that creature’s nature. It is what it is. Hello.
medicaid was the down fall. most on them laugh because they don,t have to worry for any thing i know plenty of people who have kids that should have insurance and the money and they lie no where does god say help for all your wants he said take care of youre family
Maybe after Medicaide baby number two Medicaid could pay to have baby momma’s tubes tied. If she doesn’t agree then have the rest at home.
But no tube tying at Sacred Heart where tube tying is considered a sin.
Kathy, you are an idiot or either just plain ignorant. Compassion and giving comes from the heart..not from the government. If you see those in need it is your Christian duty to help. I personally know of several “families” where the man and woman are not legally married. The man holds down a well paying job while the woman sits home having one baby after another. She files for a single unwed mother and receives Medicaid as well as SSI checks for herself and each child. Our government as well as our prosperous futures as a free liberated country is going to hell in a handbasket because we have sat back and let it happen. I am all for our government helping the true disabled and our elderly citizens who have worked and payed into this system all their lives to receive their just benefits. Sure…I’m an oldie, but I worked for over forty years to be able to sit back and talk this talk! If we had gotten pregnant in my day, we barely had family to help us,,,much less the government. It’s just called morals and responsibility!
Medicaid has many faces in the way of recipients. You have people that are truly in need of their services. This can be through a physical condition which they have no control over. These people will probably need the service their whole lives. Where the system has been perverted is people using it to subsisdize reproduction. For people to mindlessly reproduce is a burden on their own children and the rest of us. The program was meant to be a safety net not a support system for the irresponsible. Even if a female wants to have her tubes tied, she has to sign the paper 45 days in advance so there is no “coercion”.
It would certainly be better to allow people unfettered access to birth control devices, pills, vasectomies for those who can’t afford them and so on. I can see if someone doesn’t believe in abortion; but, why even let it get to that point?
REGARDING:
“Patients have no limits to emergency room visits, they will have to pay for their own care if they go more than six times a year.
Actually, no they won’t. The bill just won’t be paid. (Under the “blood from a turnip” concept.) It will eventually be written off as bad debt and the hospital will be forced to charge everybody else more money to make up for their loss.
We still get to pay for it but this way we also get to be called greedy and unChristian for complaining.
David thankful we still have the right
to gripe
and be griped at
Why is it that for so many people the minute they hear the words “medicaid” or “welfare” the first thing they think of is that someone receiving it must just be lazy and shiftless?
My point is that many of the individuals on Medicaid are first and foremost folks who are in nursing homes they take up the largest part of Medicaid, secondly persons with disability such as mental retardation, severe disability, yes pregnant women get Medicaid, but it is for the child to survive and give them a half a chance not as a reward.
Jesus would knowing the Medicaid population in Escambia, slap you all down. HE would clarify what charity is, who the little children are and wonder how he could make such selfish self centered people who have no sense of true Christianity in their hearts.
Why don’t they get rid of Pregnant Medicaid for repeat clients and provide for those who actually need it!
You can not multiply wealth by dividing it.
Kathy…My Bible clearly states that if a man won’t work, he dosen’t get to eat.
One statement in the article is misleading to some. Patients have no limits to emergency room visits, they will have to pay for their own care if they go more than six times a year.
Thank God we have medicare and other insurance. I do know there are people who are not able to work, and I realize they need help. There are also people on medicade and welfare who are more able to work than I am. I know families that by the time the kids are grown and married they get on welfare and medicade, the parents did it and that is all they know reach for handouts. I hope if the government quits financing all these illigitimate children they will think twice about getting there in the first place. When I go to the ER I know half the people there are on medicade. It’s sad the way the government has let them know it’s okay not to work we will look out for you!
Well Jesus would say that a man eats by the sweat of his brow. To many people that are lazy and wont work but are still looking for a handout, make it rough for all those who do work and cant get any help at all. Now, grant it their are a lot who can’t work due to different circumstances. It seems that the goverenment is always taken from the working man to give to the non working man. I agree with having much harder stipulations for people on welfare. I am not against it, it was started for a good cause but to many people have learned how to beat the system and something needs to change.
REGARDING:
“- – - who could not work a job because of a lack of intellectual properties that could make him prosperous.”
You’re saying he lacks the mind of a millionaire?
Or are you saying his mind won’t let him work?
David for free minds
@Kathy
If you will kindly notice I said “WON’T work”.
I do not begrudge anything to the ones that CAN’T work.
And I can assure you that Jesus does not condone pure laziness.
Interesting that ignorance leads one to believe that the Medicaid recipients are all too lazy to work. I have a neighbor of whom many of you in Molino know, who could not work a job because of a lack of intellectual properties that could make him prosperous. You don’t get angry at the governor for giving big tax cuts to corporations but your angry at the poor many times innocent person that can’t work.
Some kind of Christians you are, what would Jesus say to your harmful thoughts?
Who is going to support the people that won’t work when they finally break the back of the ones who will?
It is extremely sad that instead of forcing the lazy people to get a J O B, they continually take money away from the ones that will work.
Maybe if the ones that don’t work are not allowed to eat then we would see a difference in our economy.
AND — SCOTT, KNOWS MEDICAID AND MEDICARE!