State: Bush signs health package

Bush signs health package

The measures, in part, will help struggling seniors pay for prescription drugs and expand insurance for children.

By JO BECKER and WES ALLISON

TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Jeb Bush signed into law Thursday a host of measures that he says show his commitment to providing "accessible, affordable quality health care for all Floridians."

The health care package includes help for struggling seniors who can't afford prescription drugs, an expansion of health insurance for children of the working poor, a new program aimed at reducing racial disparities in health care and several HMO reforms supported by the managed care industry.

During a tour across the state, including stops in St. Petersburg and Tampa, Bush touted the package as one that would "make numerous improvements in the health care industry."

Two of the new laws are primarily aimed at helping the poor afford health care.

Seniors with incomes between 90 percent and 120 percent of the poverty level will qualify for up to $80 per month to help pay for prescription drugs. The $15-million program won't begin until Jan. 1. It affects an estimated 30,000 seniors. Each would have to come up with a 10 percent co-payment to participate.

The new law also will force pharmacies participating in the state's Medicaid program to give Florida's 2.8-million Medicare recipients an estimated 5 percent to 10 percent discount on drugs. All Medicare recipients, regardless of income, would get the discount.

Another law expands the state's KidCare program, which provides health insurance to children of the working poor. Among other changes, the program will now feature a dental benefit.

Bush also signed into law the "Patient Protection Act of 2000," a hodgepodge of measures pushed by doctors, hospitals and insurers.

The new law is guaranteed to become an issue in the upcoming legislative elections, with Republicans claiming to have reined in the managed care industry and Democrats charging that the GOP-controlled Legislature did very little to help patients.

"It's a sham," said Tony Welch, spokesman for the state Democratic Party. "It's a sham."

But Bush said the new rules for HMOs require "that patients and their doctors be in the front seat" of health care decisions.

Under the law, HMOs now must have doctors, rather than bureaucrats, make decisions to deny coverage, something HMOs already typically do.

The legislation is hardly making the industry squirm. Richard Dorff, president of the Florida Association of HMOs, joined Bush for the bill-signing ceremony in Miami on Thursday afternoon.

Rick Curran, a spokesman for Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Florida, one of the state's largest insurers, said it should have little effect on the way his and other HMOs conduct business.

"That's why we were comfortable with much of that legislation, because it was stuff we're already doing as a matter of course," Curran said.

Theodore Babbitt, a board member of the Tampa-based Association for Responsible Medicine, derided the bill as the "HMO protection law."

A bipartisan group of state senators initially pushed to give patients the power to sue their HMO for damages if care is improperly denied. But faced with stiff opposition in the House and from Bush and the industry, the Senate eventually capitulated.

Opponents claimed it would raise health care costs, thereby increasing the ranks of the uninsured, but patient advocates say making HMOs legally responsible is the only way to ensure patient care wins out over the insurer's financial interests.

"The way to make sure the HMOs make honest decisions about medical care is to make sure people have the right to sue them when they make a mistake," Babbitt said.

The new law also provides several goodies for Florida's powerful health care industry, including a $28-million tax break and increased Medicaid payments for hospitals. And it allows small businesses to pool their resources to establish Small Employers Health Alliances for buying health insurance. If employers can buy insurance less expensively that way, advocates say, it should translate into lower costs for the employees.

At least one aspect of the Patient Protection Act seems to have no detractors. Bush won kudos from doctors and community leaders in St. Petersburg on Thursday for a new program aimed at reducing racial disparities in health care.

The state will provide $10-million annually to educate minorities about the prevention and treatment of AIDS, heart disease, diabetes and other diseases, as well as the importance of childhood immunizations and prenatal care.

Blacks, Hispanics and American Indians suffer from such diseases in wildly disproportionate numbers compared with whites.

"We perish for the lack of knowledge," said Cassandra Jackson, a care coordinator for Family Service Centers Healthy Start in St. Petersburg.

Bush also signed a bill to spend about $60-million in interest next year from the Lawton Chiles Endowment Fund. The money would go to programs for children, the elderly and biomedical research.