Examining Florida's Healthcare Options

Yesterday I sent a letter to Florida's U.S. Senators expressing my concerns about the draft health insurance reform proposal in the United States Senate. The proposal calls for the Medicaid program to be expanded in the states, which would have serious implications for Florida.

In Florida alone, five to 20 percent of Medicaid funding may be lost to fraud, although it is almost impossible for us to know for certain. That is a staggering amount of hard earned taxpayer money that should be going to a Medicaid recipient in need. My office has engaged in an aggressive fight to recover these funds and in the 2008-09 fiscal year, we recovered over $168 million -- the highest amount recovered in five years. We should not expand Florida's Medicaid program because it will further strain our limited state resources to investigate and prosecute Medicaid fraud.

A recent Miami Herald article reported that Medicaid insures a total of 2.7 million people in Florida, and accounts for 27 percent of the state's budget. If this program expands, our burden will increase. Because Florida is constitutionally mandated to have a balanced budget each year, more cuts will certainly have to be made elsewhere to fund an increased Medicaid program.

There are growing voices in opposition to the healthcare proposal currently in Congress. I urge you to follow this issue closely in the coming weeks as the implications of this proposal will impact all Floridians.