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Ex-Lawmaker Tapped To Run State Health Care Agency

Tribune photo by COLIN HACKLEY

Department of Business and Professional Regulation Secretary Holly Benson speaks as Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, left, and Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp look on during a news conference Tuesday in Tallahassee.

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By DAVID ROYSE / Associated Press

Published: February 12, 2008

TALLAHASSEE - A former Republican state lawmaker from Pensacola will be the new secretary of Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration, Gov. Charlie Crist said Tuesday.

Holly Benson has spent the past year heading the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, which regulates many businesses, from restaurants to hairdressers. Her new job will be replacing Dr. Andrew Agwunobi, who is leaving after a little more than a year.

The agency regulates health care, including hospitals and nursing homes. One of its most high-profile roles is overseeing Medicaid, the program that pays for health care for many of Florida's poor.

Agwunobi has been commuting from Atlanta, where his family lives, to Tallahassee, and said it just wasn't working well.

"It's been a big strain, especially on my two little girls," he said.

Benson will have an immediate high-profile decision to make: how aggressively the state should continue to move toward a Medicaid system that makes more use of private health maintenance organizations and other networks.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush's administration pushed the state toward a Medicaid system that works more like the private sector, and it's being tried in a few Florida counties. But several recent studies have found that some people were having trouble getting adequate care under the new system, and Agwunobi recently said his agency wouldn't push forward this year to implement the program statewide.

Benson was one of the architects of the plan in the Legislature.

But she said Tuesday that it's not clear that the system is ready to go statewide.

"One of the things we talked about ... was our need to make sure that we had data to support the efficacy of Medicaid reform and to show that we were really serving the patients of Florida better. In talking with Secretary Agwunobi and his leadership team, I don't know that we have all the data we need to make sure that it is ready for statewide expansion," Benson said.

By profession, she is a bond lawyer.

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