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A Times Editorial
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 17, 2003
The major criticism of the senior citizens' prescription drug assistance bill that the Florida House of Representatives unanimously passed the other day is that it is too modest. Even so, it faces a cool reception in the Senate. In such tough times for the state budget, isn't something better than nothing?
Not necessarily. The Senate quite reasonably regards the House drug bill as a new program competing uphill against scores of equally worthy old ones in the face of swelling deficits that will require hundreds of millions of dollars of very painful cuts. On May 1, for example, the 26,768 chronically ill people in Florida's Medically Needy program will have to meet a new, draconian eligibility standard. Whatever their income, they must spend all but $450 a month on their own hospital, doctor and drug bills before the state will pick up the rest. It gets worse. The governor's budget proposes nothing but prescription drug assistance after July 1.
In this and other respects, legislators this year are being asked to perform medical triage, with lives very clearly at stake. The Senate could, with logic and without cruelty, insist that new programs defer to existing ones.
The response might be different if there were even a hint from the House that it would consider new revenue to help Florida meet its human responsibilities.
Instead, House leaders announced with a well-timed flourish Tuesday that state economists had revised their estimate of next year's $12-billion Medicaid caseload to free up some $30-million that would more than cover the cost of the senior citizens' drug benefit.
But that's not the way new budgets are made. No priority follows those dollars. They go back into the pool from which all appropriations are made. For House leaders to pretend otherwise is cynical. It sets up a lot of senior citizens for a disappointment.
However, the Senate should hear the bill. A useful amendment comes to mind. It would make the bill effective only upon passage of separate legislation incorporating a significant tax reform. Then send that choice back to the House.