Florida lawmakers opened this spring’s legislative session with lofty plans for overhauling Medicaid, the health program serving 2.9 million low-income, elderly and disabled residents and absorbing $22 billion — about one-third of the state budget.
But Senate Rules Chairman John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, effectively said Monday night that the rewrite won’t be ready — for a while.
A special session on Medicaid is likely to occur later in the year, Thrasher conceded.
“Medicaid’s too big of a deal,” Thrasher said. “This is something we need to thoughtfully consider and frankly, if it were left up to me….I’d of had a (negotiating committee) on this. I think Medicaid is that important that a couple of people ought not sit around and try to work it out.”
Senate Health and Human Services budget chairman Joe Negron, R-Stuart, and his House counterpart, Rep. Rob Schenck, R-Springhill, have purportedly been talking about resolving the myriad differences between the dueling approaches to Medicaid. None of the huddles have been public — and no progress has been reported, other than anecdotal claims from Negron, Schenck and House Speaker Dean Cannon, that progress is being made.
Thrasher’s apparently had enough.
“I think it’s that important to have an open dialogue, an open debate, and have as much transparency on it as possible,” he said. “It’s our largest piece of our budget. And we’re trying to cope with some really important issues. If that means coming back later, so be it.”
