Broward wants out of Florida Medicaid pilot
MIAMI (AP) – The largest county in Florida’s Medicaid privatization experiment wants out of the troubled program amid complaints that residents are getting shoddy medical treatment.
Two years into the pilot, residents “tell these terrible stories about how their medical treatment is so compromised that it is unacceptable,” said state Rep. Elaine Schwartz, D-Hollywood. She worked with Broward County commissioners to draft a resolution that supports a repeal of the pilot in Broward and opposes expanding it into other counties.
When it passed in 2005, Gov. Jeb Bush touted the five-year pilot, which operates similar to an HMO, as a national model for improving care while limiting state costs. Since then, a flood of critics say the program is mired in bureaucracy, and patients complain they struggle to get doctor’s appointments and medicines.
“The Florida Legislature can take whatever action they deem appropriate,” the Agency for Health Care Administration said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. “AHCA will continue to evaluate all components of the pilot and make appropriate revisions to ensure access to medical services for Medicaid beneficiaries.
Under the pilot, the government pays private companies a set amount for handling a specific number of residents in the counties – similar to an HMO in the private sector. The companies, in turn, decide how to care for people, including which doctors they can see and what medicines and treatments can be prescribed.
Proponents say the plans offer patients more customized benefits. However, patients complain they often have to pick between plans that cover either their doctors or medicines – not both. Studies echo those complaints putting the program even more under fire.