TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Rick Scott’s newly formed Commission on Healthcare and Hospital Funding does not appear likely to play a major role in helping state lawmakers resolve a stalemate over health care funding that has prevented them from passing a new state budget.
It quickly became clear in the inaugural meeting Wednesday of the nine-member commission, whose members have scant direct experience in health care, that the panel will need some time to gather data from the vast and complex system before advancing any recommendations.
And those recommendations will likely come too late to have any real impact on the 20-day special session that begins June 1 as lawmakers try to resolve their differences on a budget that must be in place by July 1.
Scott, who briefly addressed the commission by phone, has raised numerous questions about hospital finances in light of the federal government’s reluctance to renew a $2.2 billion hospital funding program, known as the low-income pool (LIP).
Local developer Carlos Beruff is the leader of Gov. Scott's Commission on Healthcare and Hospital Funding. (H-T ARCHIVE)
A former hospital executive, Scott has suggested a controversial “profit-sharing” plan for the hospitals, which he says made a recent $3.7 billion in profits, and he wants the commission to scrutinize the role of taxpayer funding in hospitals, health maintenance organizations and other providers.
“We’ve got to get a return on those dollars because they are somebody’s hard-earned dollars,” Scott told the commission. “There is absolutely no free money out there.”
Liz Dudek, head of the state Agency for Health Care Administration, which oversees Florida’s $23 billion Medicaid program, reinforced Scott’s comments saying the commission will look at how efficiently the hospitals and other providers are using their public funding for the services that they provide.
“We aren’t saying providers shouldn’t be profitable, but we should ask how much do providers really need from government and should government be the source of profit?” she said.
A key component of the commission’s work will be its ability to analyze the financial data on the hospitals and other providers.
Last week, Scott asked the hospitals to submit nearly a decade’s worth of financial data, including everything from profit margins to the daily cost for patients to executive salaries to lobbying fees to the most common ailments and their cost for treatment at the facilities.
The hospital organizations said most of the information was already in the hands of Dudek’s agency. Some hospitals complied with the request. Some sent partial responses. And Dudek told the commission some “absolutely refused to answer the survey.”
The non-responses irked Dudek and some commission members. She told the panel she would compile a spreadsheet for the commission’s meeting next week in Orlando showing which facilities responded and which didn’t and include how much funding, such as LIP, they are receiving.
Even with the data in hand, the commission faces a daunting challenge.
“We’re just getting started but yet we don’t have all the time in the world,” said Tom Kuntz, a former Suntrust Bank executive from Winter Park. “I have a worry that if we’re not careful we will lose sight of the mission, which is to focus on the taxpayers’ investment and the return on that investment, and we will be buried in data.”
Kuntz asked for the state health officials to give the commission a “road map” on what the panel was expected to achieve.
Jason Rosenburg, a Gainesville surgeon and former chairman of the Florida Board of Medicine, was surprised by AHCA data showing that more than 70 percent of hospital funding came from government sources, primarily Medicare and Medicaid.
“Wow,” said Rosenburg.
Carlos Beruff, the Manatee County developer who chairs the commission, said he believed the commission’s primary focus would be on hospitals, although other entities, like HMOs, will also be discussed.
“I think we’re more focused on the hospitals than the managed care plans, which is a whole different arena,” he said.
He also said the commission’s goal would be to provide an analysis of health care financing that could help guide decisions by Scott and lawmakers. “The more data that someone has to digest the better the decision they’re going to make,” Beruff said.
Dudek said her agency remains in discussion with the federal government over the future of LIP, the $2.2 billion program that compensates Florida hospitals for caring for the uninsured.
“We’re still talking to the federal government,” she said. “What will eventually happen I do not know. I think the Legislature is looking at all the options and we’re going to continue trying as long as we can.”
The federal government told the state last summer that the LIP program would not continue in its current form after June 30. With the eventuality of all or some of the LIP funding disappearing, the Senate advanced a plan to expand Medicaid coverage to provide health care to some 800,000 low-income Floridians.
Scott and the House strongly oppose the Medicaid expansion plan. But lawmakers will return in their 20-day session next month to try to resolve that impasse — which amounted to a $4 billion difference in original budget plans — and pass a new state budget by June 30.
Scott also said Wednesday that he will continue to push for his $673 million tax-cut package and for a record per-student spending level in public schools.
“I’m cautiously optimistic that we’ll have a good special session,” Scott said.
