The bill has worked this way:
When it passed in 2005, Gov. Jeb Bush touted the five-year pilot, which operates similar to an HMO, as a national model for improving care while limiting state costs. Since then, a flood of critics say the program is mired in bureaucracy, and patients complain they struggle to get treatment.
An Associated Press study found that nearly 25 percent of doctors in Broward and Duval counties have dropped out of the plan, saying the pilot limits them from treating patients as they see fit.
Under the pilot, the government pays private companies a set amount for handling a specific number of residents. The companies decide their care, including which doctors they see and what medicines and treatments are prescribed.
Here is more on the program.
Bill Limits Medicaid Pilot Program A lawmaker has filed a bill seeking to limit the state's authority to operate a Medicaid privatization experiment even as state officials have begun to take a stand against the troubled pilot program.
The proposal seeks to revoke the Agency for Health Care Administration's power to get money from the federal agency which helps fund the pilot program. Rep. Elaine Schwartz, D-Hollywood, said her office is flooded with residents who can't get doctor's appointments and medicine. Schwartz said she would have filed a bill to stop the pilot program altogether, but the deadline had passed.
Officials in Broward County, the largest of five participating, passed a resolution saying they want out of the troubled pilot because residents are delayed medical treatment.
Here is more about Florida's care (or lack thereof)
of the needy and disabled.The Florida Legislature plans to discontinue Medicaid payments to the medically needy, excluding pregnant women and children, and the elderly and disabled — a group that contains 40,000 individuals — effective July 1, in order to save the state nearly $700 million.
In 2007 ,the budget-strapped Legislature voted to cut benefits to people with disabilities who get Medicaid money to pay for housing, job training, therapy and transportation. In the next two months, the state agency that manages the payments will begin rolling out the cuts.
The 31,000 people statewide who now receive an uncapped amount of money each year will be grouped into four categories, each with a different limit. That means some people will get less money.
State officials say the cuts are necessary in these tough economic times. They also say, however, that capping the payments will enable the state to serve more people.
..."The indigent-care plan, in which 19,020 Polk residents were enrolled during this fiscal year, must shrink to about 3,000 people to make up a deficit expected to be $14 million to $15 million, Assistant County Manager Lea Ann Thomas said.
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