Florida government plays politics with people's lives

from the Orlando Sentinels editorial board

Democrats were in charge last year when Congress passed President Obama's health-care overhaul. Republican legislators in Florida have been waging a partisan war on it ever since, not caring about the collateral damage.

The latest victims are senior citizens and people with disabilities in Florida who are covered under Medicaid, the state and federally funded health-care program.

Last month a joint legislative panel turned down a $2.1 million federal grant that would have made Florida eligible for an additional $35 million from Washington to move Medicaid patients from nursing homes into assisted living facilities or their own homes. A majority on the panel, all Republicans, wanted nothing to do with the money because it was provided under the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — what critics call Obamacare.

Florida has taken the lead among 26 states in a lawsuit challenging the act as unconstitutional. A federal judge ruled in favor of the states in January but turned down their request to suspend the law. His ruling has been appealed, and other federal judges have found the act constitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court will almost certainly have the last word.

But Florida legislators already have left on the table at least $54 million — by rejecting grants, returning them, or not applying for them — simply because the programs are part of the Affordable Care Act.

Florida is in no position to be turning down health-care help. More than one in five state residents is without insurance, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. And legislators cut funding for Medicaid and other health-care programs by more than $1 billion in the budget they approved in May.

The federal funds that legislators have shunned would have gone to a wide range of worthy causes. Wellness programs for people with chronic diseases. Construction of community health centers. Help on Medicare premiums and prescription-drug costs for low-income seniors. Hospice care for children.

State Rep. Denise Grimsley, the Sebring Republican who co-chairs the Legislature's interim budget panel, argued the federally funded effort to move patients out of nursing homes would be "redundant" with state programs. But Florida's nursing-home diversion program has a waiting list of more than 11,000 people, according to the state Department of Elder Affairs.

And the federal program, while funded in the Affordable Care Act, actually began in 2005 under then-President George W. Bush. It's not just a compassionate policy; it's also fiscally responsible. Every senior on Medicaid served by the program yields a big savings for taxpayers, because care in a nursing home typically costs more than double what care in an assisted living facility costs, and nearly double what care at home costs.

The federal health money that Florida rejected was made available to other states. It wasn't used to cut federal taxes or reduce the deficit. States that have accepted grants to help move seniors from nursing homes include Wisconsin and Indiana, even though both joined Florida in its suit against the Affordable Care Act.

There's nothing hypocritical about those states taking the money. The lawsuit led by Florida took aim at the Affordable Care Act's requirements that individuals buy health insurance and states expand their Medicaid programs. The suit didn't challenge all federal aid to states for health care.

Florida's GOP legislators need to call a truce in their ideological battle against anything that's even indirectly related to health-care reform. They owe it to the state's most vulnerable residents.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/os-ed-health-reform-money-070711-20110706,0,6605193.story