Representative Mark Pafford meets with PBC Day officials and attendees.
2015 Legislative Summary
In one of the most dramatic legislative sessions in Florida history, the House and Senate’s battle over Medicaid expansion weighed heavily on the budget process. The Senate argued that expanding Medicaid was the best solution for providing coverage to Florida’s uninsured population, as well as mitigating the state’s loss of Low Income Pool (LIP) funding. The House and Governor Scott vigorously opposed expansion and demanded that the federal government continue providing the LIP funds. The federal government announced last year that the funding was going to expire in 2015. Those funds are provided to hospitals and clinics that care and treat uninsured and under insured patients to reimburse some of their expenses. In the coming year, that would have meant a loss to Florida hospitals of up to $1.3 billion.
With the House and Senate’s respective budgets $4 billion and one Medicaid plan apart, the impasse was too great to resolve before the regular session concluded. The House adjourned sine die without warning days before the end of the regular session, and the Senate, without the ability to conduct legislative business with the House, adjourned with an empty rotunda.
Since the legislature is constitutionally mandated to produce a budget by July 1st, a special session was called for in June, during which a compromise needed to be reached. Ultimately, the three-week special session saw the legislature negotiate and pass a budget that did not expand Medicaid but did compromise on LIP funding. The legislature allocated $400 million in general funds to reimburse hospitals, which will draw down $600 million in federal matching funds. This compromise meant, however, that Governor Scott did not get the full tax cut package he sought. Next year, with the federal LIP funding dropping even further, the legislature will face yet another complication in constructing the budget.