HB 0025

CS

CHAMBER ACTION

1	The Committee on Procedures recommends the following:
2
3	Committee Substitute
4	Remove the entire bill and insert:
5	House Memorial
6	A memorial to the Congress of the United States, urging
7	Congress to change the existing formula for distribution
8	of Medicaid funds.
9
10	WHEREAS, Florida is the fourth most populous state, with
11	16.4 million residents, and
12	WHEREAS, more than 2 million Floridians live in poverty and
13	approximately 2.8 million Floridians have no health insurance
14	whatsoever, and
15	WHEREAS, it is a moral incumbency that every Floridian have
16	access to quality, affordable health care, and
17	WHEREAS, impoverished Floridians have more difficulty
18	securing quality, affordable health care, especially if they are
19	uninsured, and
20	WHEREAS, Florida participates in the Federal Government's
21	Medicaid program to support those impoverished citizens and
22	ensure their access to health care, and
23	WHEREAS, when Medicaid was created in 1965, one of its
24	purposes was to reduce the differences among the states
25	regarding their respective abilities to fund medical services
26	for the impoverished, and
27	WHEREAS, federal funds for Medicaid are distributed to the
28	states based on a funding formula that uses per capita income as
29	a key indicator of a state's ability to support its impoverished
30	population, and
31	WHEREAS, numerous reports from the United States General
32	Accounting Office dating back to the early 1980s demonstrate
33	that per capita income is a poor indicator of a state's funding
34	ability, and
35	WHEREAS, the use of per capita income assumes that states
36	with lower per capita incomes have higher rates of poverty,
37	which is a false assumption based on data from the United States
38	Census of 2000, and
39	WHEREAS, the funding formula does not account for states'
40	respective populations in poverty, the wealth distribution of
41	larger states, or the costs to serve Medicaid populations in
42	respective states, and
43	WHEREAS, the use of per capita income in the funding
44	formula fails to accurately reflect the needs of the more
45	populous states, and
46	WHEREAS, the use of a state's total taxable resources in
47	the formula, as recommended by the General Accounting Office,
48	would result in Florida receiving hundreds of millions of
49	dollars more of federal funds in distribution, which amounts to
50	its fair share, and
51	WHEREAS, according to the 2002 financial data of the Agency
52	for Health Care Administration, uncompensated care in Florida's
53	hospitals is growing at the rate of 12 to 13 percent per year,
54	Medicaid caseloads grew almost 7 percent in the last fiscal
55	year, and the costs of the Medicaid program continue to grow at
56	an alarming rate, and
57	WHEREAS, because of the poor reimbursement rates offered to
58	Florida's physicians due to the disparity created by the funding
59	formula, many doctors have limited their provision of services
60	for Medicaid patients and some have stopped treating Medicaid
61	patients altogether, and
62	WHEREAS, this decline in the number of physicians who will
63	treat Medicaid patients threatens the quality and availability
64	of health care to impoverished Floridians, NOW, THEREFORE,
65
66	Be It Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
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68	That the Congress of the United States is requested to pass
69	legislation to change the existing formula for the distribution
70	of Medicaid funds from a formula based on per capita income to
71	one based on total taxable resources and the poverty rate,
72	thereby providing a more equitable distribution of Medicaid
73	funds to the states and bringing the Medicaid program closer to
74	compliance with its stated legislative goal.
75	BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be
76	dispatched to the President of the United States, to the
77	President of the United States Senate, to the Speaker of the
78	United States House of Representatives, and to each member of
79	the Florida delegation to the United States Congress.

CODING: Words stricken are deletions; words underlined are additions.