Welcome again to Analysis, a vertical that focuses on the crossroads of well being care coverage and politics.
— Report-breaking enrollment —
Republican legislative leaders and Gov. Ron DeSantis aren’t proponents of the Inexpensive Care Act.
However Florida residents flock to the federal medical insurance alternate (HealthCare.gov) to enroll in a so-called Obamacare plan.
Greater than 3.22 million Florida residents enrolled in an Obamacare plan via the federal medical insurance alternate through the 2023 open enrollment interval, in line with the Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Providers (CMS).
Florida accounted for slightly below 20% of total enrollment within the federal alternate this yr with President Joe Biden’s administration asserting that 16.3 million individuals nationwide obtained insurance coverage within the 2023 open enrollment interval.
Of the 16.3 million individuals who joined through the latest open enrollment interval, 12.7 million had been returning prospects and greater than 3.6 million had been new enrollees.
Florida’s enrollment in this system far outpaced some other state. Texas, which enrolled greater than 2.4 million individuals, got here in a distant second.
In response to CMS, 92% of HealthCare.gov enrollees had entry to choices from three or extra insurance coverage firms after they shopped for plans. The Inflation Discount Act helped broaden monetary help, with CMS reporting that 80% of returning prospects had been capable of buy a well being plan for $10 or much less a month after tax credit.
___
I welcome your suggestions, questions and particularly your suggestions. You possibly can e mail me at [email protected] or name me at 850-251-2317.
— Finances’s coming —
DeSantis has simply days left to ship his funds suggestions to the Legislature forward of the 2023 Legislative Session.
By legislation, the Governor should current a proposed funds for the fiscal yr 2023-24 to state legislators by Feb. 5, however since that day falls on a Sunday this yr, all indicators level to the discharge occurring someday subsequent week.
DeSantis has already rolled out suggestions tied to training and environmental spending, however he has not but spelled out his funds requests for well being care businesses. He has made it clear that he plans to pursue laws that might completely prolong bans on COVID-19 vaccine mandates and block state medical regulators from taking actions in opposition to medical doctors primarily based on feedback they make about COVID-19.
The Governor has additionally pledged to enact substantial tax cuts, though he has not detailed the substance of these proposals.
Florida has constructed up a considerable funds surplus because of higher-than-expected income development because the economic system recovered from the pandemic and an infusion of federal money together with larger Medicaid matching funds. That match can be phased out later this yr and the state can be allowed to begin disenrolling individuals from the protection internet well being care program, which might additionally unencumber further state cash.
The latest monetary outlook by state economists mission that legislators have $12.1 billion in non-recurring common income obtainable to make use of for the upcoming funds and almost $55 billion normally income altogether. About $53.1 billion in GR has been spent within the present fiscal yr, together with $800 million on a program designed to offer reinsurance to struggling property insurance coverage carriers.
— Goodbye, hey —
Florida Wholesome Youngsters Company Chief Working Officer Austin Noll is leaving his publish for a place on the state Company for Well being Care Administration (AHCA).
Noll can be introduced on as a “Deputy Secretary” of some type and there’s hypothesis that he might land within the state’s Medicaid workplace.
Tom Wallace is presently the Deputy Secretary of Medicaid and Bryan Meyer is the Assistant Deputy Secretary of Medicaid Operations. Wallace has appeared earlier than Home and Senate committees for the final week making displays on the whole lot from Florida Well being Care Connections (FX) to Florida’s plans to disenroll individuals from the Medicaid program starting April 1.
Noll has been with FHK since September 2016. He has spent most of his time on the company serving because the COO. His final day at FHK is Feb. 3.
— Not his high precedence —
Home Well being and Human Providers Committee Chair Randy High-quality held a 90-minute assembly on pharmacy profit managers (PBMs) this week in Tallahassee that drew a slew of Well being care and medical insurance lobbyists.
The assembly got here after DeSantis introduced Jan. 12 that he’ll push the Legislature to impose new rules on prescribed drugs in an effort to deliver down costs.
“We’re going to do probably the most complete transparency laws in regard to prescribed drugs,” DeSantis stated throughout a information convention held within the retirement enclave The Villages. “We’re going to defend shoppers.”
It’s the primary time the DeSantis administration has gotten concerned within the PBM debate on the legislative degree.
High-quality advised reporters deliberate on having “many” conferences on the difficulty so he and different members can delve into how PBMs function, earn money, and have an effect on the state’s well being care supply system.
High-quality is keen to dedicate time to the difficulty. However the state Consultant, who introduced his plans to run for Senate this week, advised Florida Politics Wednesday that altering how PBMs function isn’t his high precedence for the upcoming Legislative Session that begins March 7.
“No. I don’t know that I might say that,” High-quality stated. “I believe it’s an necessary situation. And clearly, it’s necessary to him (DeSantis). Is it my high precedence? No.”
High-quality stated neither the Governor’s Workplace nor the Senate had been in contact with the Home in regards to the situation.
— Test it out —
Researchers have put collectively a complete dashboard that measures 36 well being metrics for each congressional district within the nation — together with all 28 within the state of Florida.
Assembled by the New York College Grossman College of Drugs in partnership with the Robert Wooden Johnson Basis, the dashboard appears at numerous measures similar to dying from coronary heart illness and breast most cancers but additionally information on housing affordability and whether or not residents have insurance coverage protection.
“The Congressional District Well being Dashboard will assist fill a crucial want for well timed, rigorous, and actionable information that may inform evidence-based policymaking,” stated Dr. Marc Gourevitch, chair of the Division of Inhabitants Well being at NYU Langone Well being and the initiative’s principal architect. “Now, policymakers, advocates, and others can drill right down to their particular congressional districts to determine the alternatives and challenges affecting the well being and well-being of all of the individuals they serve, no matter earnings, race, or ZIP code.”
Researchers say they discovered individuals residing in states that haven’t expanded Medicaid beneath Obamacare — similar to Florida — are twice as prone to be uninsured in comparison with these residing in states with expanded protection. The dashboard states that Florida’s uninsured charge for these beneath 65 is estimated at 15.3% in comparison with the nationwide common of 10%.
The congressional district with the best uninsured charge is Florida’s twenty sixth Congressional District, which stretches from southwest Florida over to Miami-Dade County and is presently represented by U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart. The dashboard estimated that 21.6% of individuals residing within the district didn’t have insurance coverage.
On a number of the different metrics: Florida is barely under the nationwide common for cardiovascular deaths, however congressional districts in inland Central Florida in addition to in Northeast Florida are above the nationwide common.
Florida is above the nationwide common within the variety of opioid overdose deaths with an estimated 27.2 deaths per 100,000 residents. Florida’s eighth Congressional District — which runs alongside the East Coast and contains Brevard County — has an estimated charge of 48.5 deaths, or greater than double the nationwide common. U.S. Rep. Invoice Posey stands for that district.
— Signal me up —
Hurricane Ian left billions in property harm in its wake. However residents even have post-trauma following the storm.
Molina Healthcare of Florida is internet hosting a digital assembly Thursday to debate psychological well being points and ways in which suppliers, community-based organizations, and different stakeholders may also help help each other. Rep. Sam Garrison will ship the keynote deal with for the one-hour assembly.
Molina Healthcare of Florida Plan President Mike Jones can be in attendance. Melanie Brown-Woofter, president and CEO, Florida Behavioral Well being Affiliation; Melissa Larkin-Skinner, CEO, Centerstone in Florida; and Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma are the featured panelists. Longtime reporter Kimberly Moore will reasonable.
Register right here.
— RULES —
—The Board of Drugs proposes amending Rule 64B8-8.0011 to deal with the {qualifications} for probation screens who’re supervising licensees who observe in specialty areas the place there isn’t a board certification. Extra right here.
— LOBBYISTS —
—Sebastian Aleksander has registered to foyer for Suncoast Surgical procedure Heart.
—Lisa Ard has registered to foyer for ChenMed.
—Robert Asztalos and James Scott Hartsell have registered to foyer for the Division of Veterans Affairs.
—Geoffrey Becker has registered to foyer for Medtronic.
—Ellyn Bogdanoff, Nicholas Matthews and Cody William Rogers have registered to foyer for The Kids’s Therapeutic Institute.
—Douglas Bruce has registered to foyer for the Affiliation of Help Coordination Companies.
—Rosanna Manuela Catalano has registered to foyer for Superior Diagnostic Group.
—Jim Delatte has registered to foyer for Horizon Therapeutics.
—Samantha Sexton Greer has registered to foyer for the Florida Chiropractic Coalition, the Florida Optometric Affiliation, Well being Selection Community of Florida and TAD Restoration Providers.
—Mike Haridopolis has registered to foyer for ThoraGenix.
—Lenys Klumpp has registered to foyer for the Florida Poison Info Heart Community.
—Mark Maxwell has registered to foyer for PanCare of Florida.
—Bethany McAlister has registered to foyer for the American Kratom Affiliation and Well being Selection Community of Florida.
—Eva Mustian has registered to foyer for Florida Advocates for Nursing College students.
—Kelly Kibbey Smith has registered to foyer for The Nemours Basis.
—Crystal Stickle has registered to foyer for BAYADA Hearts for Dwelling Care, Inc. and Boehringer Ingelheim Prescribed drugs, Inc.
—Carlos Trujillo has registered to foyer for Household First Homecare and Jackson Well being System.
— ROSTER —
—Matthias von Herrath, M.D., has been named the brand new scientific director of the Diabetes Analysis Institute (DRI) on the College of Miami Miller College of Drugs.
—David Paniry has been named chief monetary officer of HCA Florida Northwest Hospital, a 289-bed facility in Margate.
—Kim Metzer has been named Affiliate vice chairman for Development for the UF School of Drugs. She begins Feb. 8.
— ETC —
—Baptist Well being Care Most cancers Heart in Pensacola has been accredited by the Nationwide Accreditation Program for Breast Facilities (NAPBC). “Baptist Most cancers Institute is dedicated to offering modern most cancers therapies in a patient-centered surroundings. From a affected person’s first breast most cancers analysis to therapy and help, our staff works diligently with specialists from numerous areas at Baptist to make sure the very best consequence for our sufferers,” stated Bryan Taylor, Government Director of Oncology Providers. The NAPBC is run by the American School of Surgeons (ACS). To attain NAPBC accreditation, the Baptist Most cancers Institute program follows the NAPBC requirements that concentrate on management, medical providers, analysis, neighborhood outreach, skilled training, and affected person high quality enchancment.
—Excite Medical has donated units to the College of South Florida School of Drugs that may present nonsurgical choices to sufferers affected by again ache. The DRX9000 and the DRX9000C are spinal decompression units cleared by the FDA to deal with sufferers affected by incapacitating decrease again ache, sciatica, and neck ache brought on by herniated discs, degenerative discs, and posterior aspect syndrome. Decompression is presently obtainable for spinal ranges C1-T1 (cervical backbone) and L1-S1 (lumbar backbone). “It is a superb first selection for these with disc lesions as it’s non-invasive and requires no drugs,” stated Saleem Musallam, President of Excite Medical. “Many sufferers can expertise reduction and glorious outcomes with out present process surgical procedure, avoiding the issues of surgical procedure, and at a fraction of the price of a spinal surgical procedure.”
—Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare and Florida State College broke floor this week on the FSU Well being-Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare Medical Campus in Panama Metropolis Seashore. The campus can be on an 87-acre parcel close to the intersection of State Freeway 79 and Philip Griffitts Sr. Parkway. It’s going to embrace an 80,000-square-foot medical workplace constructing. It’s going to home the TMH Doctor Companions — Major Care, Tallahassee Memorial Pressing Care Heart, an ambulatory surgical procedure middle and cardiology and orthopedic providers. It’s slated to be full by 2024.
— ICYMI —
In case you missed them, here’s a recap of different crucial well being care coverage tales coated in Florida Politics this previous week:
—College is in: Home Well being and Human Providers Committee Chair High-quality likened a 90-minute assembly the Home had on pharmacy profit managers (PBMs) Tuesday to the primary day of college. Committee members heard from a panel that included an impartial pharmacist, a CVS Caremark consultant, a consultant from the Pharmaceutical Analysis and Producers of America (PhRMA), a pharmacist with Publix, a pharmacist representing Prime Therapeutics, and the medical director for the Florida Affiliation of Well being Plans (FAHP).
—Happy pharmacists: A coalition of impartial and neighborhood pharmacists and pharmacies praised DeSantis and the state Home for bringing consideration to pharmacy profit managers and the influence they’ve on prescription drug costs. Throughout a Tuesday assembly of the Home Well being and Human Providers, lawmakers listened to a panel dialogue on PBMs that included EMPOWER Sufferers member Kevin Duane, who owns the oldest working pharmacy in Jacksonville, Panama Pharmacy.
—Blackout? The Company for Well being Care Administration (AHCA) is getting poised to publish an invite to barter six-year Medicaid managed care contracts which might be price greater than $100 billion in complete and tens of billions of {dollars} for well being plans that submit successful bids.
—Combating again: Vice President Kamala Harris got here to Tallahassee on the fiftieth anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling and vowed that the Biden administration would proceed to take steps to make sure girls’s proper to entry abortion regardless of the U.S. Supreme Courtroom’s determination final yr to overturn it.
—Psychological well being for Ian survivors: Residents within the path of Hurricane Ian, which hit the state as a Class 4 storm on Sept. 28, can be eligible for expanded psychological well being providers beneath a $13.8 million grant DeSantis is ordering state officers to make use of it to help victims. DeSantis directed the Division of Kids and Households on Thursday to supply extra providers to storm survivors.
— FOR YOUR RADAR —
Other than protection by Florida Politics, these tales are price your time.
—“State worker alleges Florida sidestepped course of in excluding gender-affirming care from Medicaid” by way of Brooke Migdon of The Hill — Florida well being officers circumvented conventional regulatory channels to draft a report recommending gender-affirming well being care be excluded from protection beneath Medicaid, a state worker alleges in an alternate included in new court docket filings. Florida’s Company for Well being Care Administration (AHCA), which controls many of the state’s Medicaid program, wrote in a June report that obtainable medical literature gives “inadequate proof” that puberty blockers, hormones, and gender-affirming surgical procedures are secure and efficient therapies for gender dysphoria and subsequently excluded them from Medicaid protection as a result of they’re “experimental and investigational.”
—“FDA outlines a plan for annual COVID-19 boosters” by way of Apoorva Mandavilli of The New York Instances — People could also be provided a single dose of a COVID-19 vaccine every Fall, a lot as they’re given flu pictures, the Meals and Drug Administration introduced on Monday. To simplify the make-up and timing of the pictures, the company is also proposing to retire the unique vaccines and to supply solely bivalent doses for main and booster pictures, in line with briefing paperwork revealed on Monday. The proposal took some scientists abruptly, together with just a few of the FDA’s personal advisers. They’re scheduled to fulfill on Thursday to debate the nation’s vaccine technique, together with which doses must be provided and on what schedule. There was little analysis to help the prompt plan, some advisers stated.
—“FHSAA committee calls particular assembly on student-athlete menstrual questions” by way of Katherine Kokal of The Palm Seashore Publish — Simply two days after recommending that Florida require highschool athletes to report their menstrual historical past and to show it over to their faculties, a panel on sports activities drugs has referred to as a particular assembly to rethink. The Florida Excessive College Athletics Affiliation’s sports activities drugs advisory committee Tuesday voted to advocate that the group’s board undertake a nationwide sports activities registration kind that makes obligatory questions for feminine athletes. The committee went additional to say that each one pages of the shape, together with athletes’ medical and reproductive historical past, must be turned over to their college to play.
—“DeSantis incorrectly claims COVID-19 boosters make you ‘extra prone to get contaminated’” by way of Bruce Y. Lee of Forbes — Sure, DeSantis actually “De stated this” at a latest information convention. He claimed that those that had gotten the COVID-19 bivalent boosters are literally “extra prone to get contaminated,” presumably with the extreme acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Particularly, the Governor asserted, “[Florida Surgeon General] Joe Ladapo can discuss a little bit bit extra about it. Like virtually each examine now has stated, with these new boosters, you’re extra prone to get contaminated with the bivalent booster.” What? How is that the case? Properly, it’s simple to “DeBunk” such claims as a result of “each examine” didn’t say what DeSantis had stated. Actually, research have stated precisely “DeOpposite.”
—“DeSantis targets trans well being care in Florida universities” by way of Andrew Atterbury of POLITICO — In a blanket request to 12 state universities, high officers with DeSantis are searching for information on the variety of people who’ve been recognized with gender dysphoria or acquired therapy in campus clinics throughout Florida. It’s unclear what precisely DeSantis intends to do with the knowledge, however his administration says it entails “governing institutional sources and defending the general public curiosity.” “Our workplace has discovered that a number of state universities present providers to individuals affected by gender dysphoria. On behalf of the Governor, I hereby request that you simply reply to the enclosed inquiries associated to such providers,” wrote Chris Spencer, director of the Workplace of Coverage and Finances for DeSantis, in a Jan. 11 memo to varsities.
— PENCIL IT IN —
Thursday
11 a.m. — Molina Healthcare of Florida hosts a dwell, digital occasion — “Behavioral Well being within the Aftermath of Hurricane Ian.” Register right here.
2 p.m. — The Company for Well being Care Administration hosts a public assembly on proposed modifications to Rule 59A-8.0095 about personnel. Place: 2727 Mahan Drive, Tallahassee 32308, Bldg. 3, Convention Room A. Or name 1 (888) 585-9008; participant code: 998518088#. Agenda and associated supplies right here.
2 p.m. — The Company for Well being Care Administration hosts a public assembly on proposed modifications to Guidelines 59A-8.0219 concerning remedy administration; 59A-8.0216 concerning registered nurse delegation of duties, and 59A-8.0219 concerning remedy administration. Place: Company for Well being Care Administration, 2727 Mahan Drive, Tallahassee Bldg. 3, Convention Room A. Or name 1 (888) 585-9008, 998-518-088#. The agenda and associated supplies might be discovered on the internet right here.
Friday
— Pleased World Breast Pumping Day.
Sunday
— Pleased birthday to Rep. Christopher Benjamin.
— Pleased birthday to Natalie Kelly, CEO of the Florida Affiliation of Managing Entities.
Monday
— Rejoice Worldwide College Day of Non-Violence and Peace.
Tuesday
— Pleased birthday to Jossie Barroso, communications director for the Senate Democrats.
— Pleased birthday to Ryan Ray, Chair of the Leon County Democratic Get together.
Wednesday
— Pleased birthday to Rep. Chuck Brannan.
8:30 a.m. — The Board of Nursing Credential and Training committees meet. Bluegreen’s Bayside Resort, 4114 Jan Cooley Dr., Panama Metropolis, 32408. Extra info right here.
Publish Views: 0
