Lawmakers' unyielding view is blind to an easy fix
By HOWARD TROXLER
Published October 29, 2003
Last week, while our state Legislature dished out $369-million for Gov. Jeb Bush's new business idea, and while it jumped into the Terri Schiavo case, it refused to take up a third item that would have done much more immediate good.
Doing so would have taken a mere flick of the Legislature's wrist. It is almost staggering that our lawmakers, and especially our state House, didn't do it. The money to pay for it is on hand, sitting in the bank.
I am talking about restoring medical coverage to more than half of the 60,000-plus kids in Florida who qualify, right now, under the state's "Kidcare" program, but who are frozen out because the Legislature capped enrollments this year.
I met one of these kids this week.
His name is Billy Gowacki, and he lives with his mom and dad in St. Petersburg. He is 11 years old, a good-looking and normal kid, with the exception of having been on chemotherapy for the past 13 months.
After they cut the tumors out of Billy's right leg, they replaced his femur and knee with metal. The rod in his thigh is a little long so he can grow into it.
Yet now there's something wrong with his bone marrow - from all that chemotherapy, probably. They're worried about leukemia. He's scheduled for a test next Tuesday, when they're supposed to take some bone marrow.
But, see, that's next Tuesday. Something else has come up first.
Billy's mom, Alicia, has MS. His father, Bill, is disabled, too. That's the catch - now that Bill's disability check has come through, the family is no longer eligible for Medicaid. Their disability payments put them over the limit of $15,000-plus for a family of three.
So Alicia and Bill got a letter from the state announcing that Billy's coverage under Medicaid will expire this Friday, Oct. 31. They fall well within the income rules for Kidcare, but there's no room for them.
"We are talking," his father says, "about a kid with cancer."
"Not a cold," Alicia chimes in.
When Billy gets chemo, he's in in the hospital three to six days. He goes back in when he gets a fever. Alicia told me that the bills run $6,000 to $10,000 a day. Even if they worked out a deal for a partial payment, their share of a single day's stay would still be more than their monthly income.
Here is the absolutely maddening part.
Florida has the money on hand to fix this.
After this year's state budget was written, the feds gave Florida back an extra $76-million in Medicaid money. It's sitting there in the bank. Only a fraction of that amount would get rid of the waiting list for the rest of this budget year.
"I'm just beside myself. It is almost unconscionable that we don't do this," says state Rep. Frank Farkas, R-St. Petersburg. Farkas is my state rep, and I have given him plenty of grief over the years. But on this issue he is in there trying to get health care to more kids, and so I am his guy, big-time.
Farkas went up to last week's special session in Tallahassee determined to fix Kidcare. He ran into a brick wall in his own chamber.
"I tried my best and couldn't get it through the special session," he said. "The Senate was amenable. The House wasn't."
The reasons are lame.
They say we shouldn't do this because budget problems will be even worse down the road. But that is no reason not to lift a finger now. They also say this is a "recurring" expense, and it is unwise to pay for it with a onetime source of dollars - but come on. They're running the entire state that way anyway. That's just an excuse.
Florida is a better state than this.
I am sorry to beat on the same villain again. I mean, the man gets beat on so much that he surely is immune by now. I am talking about Johnnie Byrd, the speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, who is the person who could change this.
But, here goes.
Come on, Mr. Speaker.
You're always bragging about your "member-driven" House. Listen now to your member Frank Farkas, and fix this.
