TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

AARP Cheers Budget

ADVERTISEMENT

By CATHERINE DOLINSKI

cdolinski@tampatrib.com

Published: March 6, 2009

TALLAHASSEE - AARP is cheering Gov. Charlie Crist's move to abandon what remains of a Jeb Bush-era initiative to overhaul long-term care for seniors.

Then-Gov. Bush had championed Florida Senior Care as the final step in his reforms of the Medicaid program by partially privatizing it.

Lawmakers had voted in 2005 to launch a pilot version of the program, which gradually would have turned long-term care of senior citizens on Medicaid over to for-profit HMOs and other managed-care organizations.

The pilot program in Central and Southern Florida was intended as a prelude to rolling out the program statewide, despite opposition from AARP and other advocates.

"The fundamental issue for us was really the choice issue," said Lori Parham, director of AARP Florida. "AARP believes strongly that people should be able to choose how and where they receive care."

Florida received approval from federal Medicaid officials to implement the pilot program, but with Bush's departure from office at the start of 2007, the momentum behind Florida Senior Care steadily declined.

Bush loyalists in the state House saved the program in 2007 and preserved its base funding in 2008, but the program never made it to launch.

Dyke Snipes, deputy secretary for Florida Medicaid, said that under Crist's budget proposal for 2009-10, the Agency for Health Care Administration would surrender all remaining funding for the program, or about $260,000 in state money.

If lawmakers go along with Crist's plan to take away Florida Care's money next year, it will likely kill the program for good, Snipes said.

Reporter Catherine Dolinski can be reached at (850) 222-8382.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT