Lawmakers appeal to feds for Medicaid help
TALLAHASSEE (AP) – Florida lawmakers want the state’s U.S. senators to help change what they say is an unfair Medicaid funding formula.
President Jeff Atwater and other Florida Senate leaders wrote in a letter Tuesday that recovery after hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 temporarily increased the state’s per capita income.
That distorted the formula for determining federal and state shares of the joint health care program.
The state lawmakers say Florida would have lost nearly $460 million in federal money over a three-year span through 2010 if it hadn’t been for Medicaid stimulus dollars. But when that ends next year, Florida will have to pay an additional $668 million.
The senators also asked for another year of Medicaid stimulus.