Education or Health, Florida makes you choose

From the Post on Politics

by John Kennedy

The House’s push to meet Gov. Rick Scott’s demand for $1 billion more in school spending came into sharper focus Tuesday, as a budget panel unveiled about $300 million in health and humans services cuts aimed at freeing-up dollars for classrooms.

Emergency room visits would be limited to a dozen per-year for adults in the state’s Medicaid program, while chiropractic and podiatry services for some 34,000 mostly low-income and elderly Floridians would be eliminated under the House’s approach, which cleared the Health Care budget subcommittee on a 10-4 vote, with Democrats opposed.

Chairman Matt Hudson, R-Naples, said House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, had hinted that cuts in many programs would be needed to meet a goal of pumping more money into public schools this election year — blunting a $1.3 billion cut schools weathered last year.

“He certainly is going to make sure we spend money on people over things,” Hudson said. “And students are certainly a priority for the speaker.

“ I would anticipate that when the other budgets roll out, you’ll see they’re a collective package in that we will be very aggressive in making sure that not only are we meeting the health care needs, but we are meeting the education needs.”

Democrats, however, urged that Republican leaders find more deft ways to make budget reductions. Eliminating some routine health coverage completely for some of the frailest Floridians can result in the state absorbing costs elsewhere.

Several college students who said they received $1,200-a-month from the state as part of the Department of Children & Families’ ‘road-to-independence’ program for youngsters who have been in foster care, argued against another House plan to cut the program’s maximum eligibility age to 21 — down from the current age 23.

The change would save about $10 million, but eliminate 657 people from the program.

Those who testified Tuesday before the committee recalled childhoods spent cycling through foster homes and schools before setting themselves on a path to college and a professional future only with the help of mentoring and the program’s cash.

“It’d be absolutely devastating to end these services at age 21, just when people are getting their feet under them,” said Andrea Cowart, 22, of Dunedin, who attends St. Petersburg College.

Cowart said she was in foster care for almost seven years and attended 10 to 15 schools. She had dropped out of high school her freshman year and had a child at age 17. Motherhood, she said, changed her course — but only with the financial help from the state program.

“It made what was impossible, possible to me,” she said.

http://www.postonpolitics.com/2012/01/house-push-for-1-billion-for-schools-brings-hhs-cuts-into-focus/