Legislative Link

A legislative update provided by the United Way of Florida, Inc.

FINAL WEEK REVIEW

NOTE FROM SPECIALGATHERING:  This is an extremely long e-mail.  For all of this e-mail, put in a comment and I will be able to e-mail it to you.  The original contains a link to all of the bills that were passed during the legislative session. 

 

 

Once they got the budget done, they flew.

This has been a moribund session. It started very slowly, as legislators spent the first couple of weeks trying to figure out how to cut about $500 million out of this year’s budget. Few bills were heard. After getting over that hump, attention turned to cutting more than $3 billion out of next year’s budget. The pace of bills being heard limped along at a pace slower than we’ve seen in recent years. Last week, as House and Senate Conferees came to consensus on the issues, and the Speaker and the President tied up the loose ends on the budget, it seemed as if legislators had broken free. Yes, the budget situation still remained as a pall over the session, but during the final week, hundreds of bills have been heard.

While the pace quickened and legislators tried to get bills through the process, advocates, funders, and service providers scrambled to try to figure out what the budget means for them and the people they serve. Although the Legislature ended up sweeping more trust funds and raiding more reserves than originally anticipated to fund such important programs as Healthy Start and Hospice, among others, Healthy Families, child welfare services and adoption subsidies, nursing homes, Medicaid recipients, services for the elderly and disabled, school readiness, juvenile justice and education sustained heavy, even crippling hits.

One of the major victories of the session was realized this week as the Senate refused to accept the House’s proposal to expand the Medicaid Reform Pilot Project into Miami-Dade, Monroe, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Manatee, Polk, Highlands, and Hardee counties by September 1, 2010. The Legislature also is parlaying over the “Window of Opportunity Act”. The House morphed a relatively simple Senate bill which basically would mandate insurance coverage for children with autism into a package that requires insurers to figure out how they will provide the coverage, and includes VPK options and coverage of children with autism/disabilities by the Florida KidCare program. Some suggested the House was attempting to “love the bill to death” as its provisions would be more costly and perhaps less effective than the simpler Senate version.

However, it does now contain important KidCare streamlining provisions. In a potentially devastating move, last night the House and Senate agreed to sunset the Medically Needy program (except for pregnant women and children) and the Medicaid Aged and Disabled program next July. This means a potential death sentence for many of the 40,000 people with chronic and severe health care problems covered by these programs. The 2009 Legislature will have to reinstate these programs in order for them to continue.

Among others, last minute efforts are being made to authorize the Governor to expend funding to offset cuts in the child welfare system, particularly the $13.8 million in adoption subsidies that parents must have in order to enable them to adopt children out of the foster care system.

Your final 2008 wrap-up edition of the Legislative Link will detail the outcome on these efforts, bills passed and killed this session, and the 2008-2009 budget in a few weeks after the dust has settled.