5 Florida health care bills that died, including a DeSantis priority – Tampa Bay Times

TALLAHASSEE — Florida lawmakers changed health care policies in ways big and small this legislative session: They passed a 15-week abortion ban. They set aside $5 million per year so Florida children can afford hearing aids.

They overhauled the process for securing state contracts in 2025 for Florida’s Medicaid managed care system. Based on current enrollment, those contracts will be worth at least $100 billion in total. Millions of Floridians covered by Medicaid will be affected by the Legislature’s policy changes.

This year alone, lawmakers budgeted nearly $49 billion in taxpayer funding for health care-related spending.

There’s plenty the Legislature didn’t do, too.

Let’s run through a sample of five health care bills that died during the 2022 Florida legislative session.

1. ‘Doctor free speech’ bill

Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed hard for Senate Bill 1184 and House Bill 687, two measures that would have made it harder for medical boards to sanction doctors over their speech.

The legislation would have required regulatory boards to find that a doctor’s speech “led to the direct physical harm” of a patient the doctor had seen within the last three years in order to apply sanctions. The bills also would have required boards to share complaints with the physician within seven days of receiving them.

Earlier this month, DeSantis held a news conference with Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and other doctors in Panama City.

“We’re here today to say, ‘Let’s get this thing across the finish line,’” DeSantis said of the proposals.

Legislators fell short of the finish line. Neither bill got a hearing on the House or Senate floor.

Supporters of the bills said doctors should not have to worry about being sanctioned just for expressing themselves on social media and elsewhere.

The Federation of State Medical Boards opposed the measures, arguing they would interfere with the boards’ ability to regulate the actions of rogue doctors.

Related: DeSantis presses Florida Legislature to pass doctor ‘free speech’ bill

2. Giving incarcerated pregnant women 12 weeks of leave to give birth

A measure, Senate Bill 630, would have required jails and prisons holding inmates for more than 72 hours to give pregnancy tests to incarcerated people upon request.

It also would have also given courts discretion to allow jailed pregnant people to take up to 12 weeks of leave to give birth and care for their child.

The bill was largely a response to the 2021 death of the child of Erica Thompson, who gave birth to a premature baby in the Alachua County jail. An Alachua County Sheriff’s Office investigation found that Thompson, six months pregnant, gave birth in her jail cell 12 hours after first indicating she was in pain.

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Proponents of the bill tried to draw parallels to the 15-week abortion ban Republican legislators passed this session.

“Our bill says, ‘don’t kill babies.’ Your bill says, ‘don’t kill babies,’” said Tray Johns, co-founder of Dignity Power, an advocacy group for incarcerated people. Johns noted how traumatic prison conditions can be for newborns and pregnant people.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Shevrin Jones, D-West Park, passed the Senate unanimously.

The House version of the measure, sponsored by Rep. Dianne Hart, D-Tampa, never got a hearing.

House Speaker Chris Sprowls, R-Palm Harbor, has been skeptical of criminal justice reform measures during his tenure as leader. A spokesperson, Jenna Sarkissian, did not respond to emails and texts seeking comment.

In a brief interview in February, Rep. Chuck Brannan, R-Macclenny, the chairperson of the first committee to which the bill was referenced, said he opposed it.

“We can’t just let people out for that reason only,” Brannan said.

However, Brannan noted he could be open to hearing a modified version of the bill next year.

3. Expanding Medicaid

Every year for almost a decade now, the Florida Legislature has declined to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. That’s left nearly 800,000 Floridians uninsured, according to the progressive-leaning Florida Policy Institute.

This year’s session was no exception.

Republicans declined to hear House Bill 27 and Senate Bill 1504, Democrat-sponsored legislation that would have expanded Medicaid to all adults making up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line. Currently, the health insurance program is available to pregnant Floridians, children, some poor adults, some persons with disabilities and some elderly Floridians.

More than 5 million Floridians were enrolled in Medicaid as of February, according to state data.

Republican opponents of expanding Medicaid have long argued the program would be too costly in the long term and wouldn’t provide good insurance to those obtaining coverage.

However, a 2021 analysis from the Florida Policy Institute found that expanding Medicaid would have saved Florida nearly $2 billion this year because of incentives in the federal American Rescue Plan.

4. Medical marijuana reform

Medical marijuana has been a divisive issue in the Legislature for years. But ahead of the 2022 legislative session, Rep. Spencer Roach, R-North Fort Myers, and Rep. Andrew Learned, D-Brandon, came together for what they said was a historic compromise.

Under the proposal, House Bill 679, patient registration cards would have lasted for two years instead of one, and the state would have expanded the use of telehealth for cannabis patients.

In exchange, the state would have tightened regulations over a number of medical marijuana policy areas. For example, the sale of hemp-based, euphoria-inducing “Delta-8″ products that are widely available across the state would have been restricted to Floridians older than 21.

Their bill didn’t get a hearing in the House or Senate.

5. Requiring insurers to cover hearing aids for children

In Florida, hundreds of kids need hearing aids but don’t have insurance that will pay for them. Medicaid covers them for the poorest children, and some pricey plans also offer coverage, but other plans do not.

Liliana Dinu Fisher’s six-year-old daughter, Audrey, has been wearing hearing aids since she was 10 days old. Although her family’s insurance coverage covers Audrey’s devices, Dinu Fisher wanted legislators to know how demanding it is to raise a child with hearing needs.

“I would love to give the mothers the option to be helped because it’s so hard,” Dinu Fisher said.

The bill to require coverage of hearing aids was opposed by insurance companies, which are against mandates from the Legislature. Although the bills, House Bill 79 and Senate Bill 498, cleared the Senate and three committees in the House, the proposal died on the House floor.

“We’ve historically not done insurance mandates in the Florida House. We don’t usually think it’s good for the market,” Sprowls told reporters Thursday. “However, we do lots of investments that we think are good for kids.”

As Sprowls alluded to, this story doesn’t end with the death of the hearing aid bill. In large part because of emotional testimony and a strong push from Rep. Brannan — whose son, Chase, got cochlear implants at five years old — the House and Senate agreed to $5 million in recurring funding for child hearing aids. That money will go to families making less than 400 percent of the federal poverty line who don’t qualify for Medicaid.

“We are thrilled that the Legislature has created this fund to help children get the hearing aids they need,” Dinu Fisher sent in a text.

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