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Health care cuts plan is unwise, Castor says

By Times staff writers
Published August 3, 2005

There have been whispers at County Center for weeks now of a secret plan in works by some Hillsborough commissioners to cut funding in half for the county's indigent health care plan.

Commissioner Kathy Castor has said she's heard that talk from people close to the plan, and it concerns her. It should be noted that similar conspiracies have been voiced before but never materialized, though commissioners did vote a few years ago to temporarily cut spending on the program in half.

"That in effect guts the program," Castor said. "I would hope the commission with dismiss that out of hand."

Castor confirmed that she has heard that the proposal would be to cut the half-cent sales tax that pays for the more than $90-million program to a quarter-cent. The other quarter-cent would then be diverted to transportation needs, another commission priority.

Such a proposal would need state legislative approval.

So far, nothing close to that has been proposed in open meetings by commissioners, though some board members have suggested the program needs a significant overhaul. Commissioner Brian Blair, for instance, has said turning the health plan over to a private operator may be in order.

72-SECOND PROTEST: The gay and lesbian rights group Equality Florida is planning a 72-second protest at County Center during today's meeting in response to the board's ban on county government acknowledging gay pride.

Why 72 seconds? That's how long it took the commission to debate the issue before passing it by a 5-1 vote.

The protest is scheduled for 3:50 p.m., the same time commissioners took their vote June 15. Group leaders are asking for people to stand for 72 seconds.

But the timing may present a problem. Commissioners have a fairly light agenda, and there's no guarantee they will still be meeting by late afternoon.

Brian Winfield, communications director for Equality Florida, said if that happens, protesters plan to stand during the last item discussed.

SPEAKING TO THE BASE: Sure, elections are still more than a year away, but that doesn't mean it's not campaign season. Commissioner Ronda Storms knows the gay pride policy she initiated speaks to her base, as did her more recent move to block funding for Planned Parenthood. So does Castor.

Castor, seeking to succeed Democrat Jim Davis in Congress, was the lone vote against the gay pride policy and also voted in the minority to give money to Planned Parenthood in this year's budget. And she notes that when addressing her peeps.

Speaking at a meet-the-candidates night organized by county Democrats Friday, Castor said the Planned Parenthood vote was symptomatic of a national trend toward a "right-wing agenda coming in like a sledgehammer," without debate or dialogue. She said she fears the county health plan is the next target.

At the same time, Castor took a step the previous day toward buttressing her fiscally conservative bona fides by proposing the county cut its property tax rate even more than County Administrator Pat Bean had proposed. The board's Republican supermajority was forced to go along.

Democrat Tom Scott, meanwhile, secured his own victory to tout on the stump at the same meeting. Scott, who has announced his candidacy for Tampa City Council, won commission approval to spend $1-million to study and implement recommendations from an affordable housing task force created at his urging.

That effort was recently singled out for praise by U.S. Housing amd Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson in a news release last month.

STORMS ON BIRTH CONTROL: When Storms moved last week to yank funding for Planned Parenthood, it was because of the group's abortion rights stance. But Planned Parenthood is also one of the leading champions of birth control to prevent pregnancy by those not prepared for it, something Storms has indicated she supports in the past.

When she opposed the creation of a law that would raise wages for the working poor last year, Storms suggested birth control was an answer.

"If you can't afford four children, birth control has been around since the 1960s," Storms said at the time. "There's a little thing called the pill."

The program for which Planned Parenthood was seeking $39,500 over two years is aimed in part at preventing teen pregnancy.

Times staff writers Bill Varian and Saundra Amrhein contributed to this report.

[Last modified August 3, 2005, 00:35:13]