HM 0025 2004
1	House Memorial
2	A memorial to the Congress of the United States, urging
3	Congress to change the existing formula for distribution
4	of Medicaid funds.
5
6	WHEREAS, Florida is the fourth most populous state, with
7	16.4 million residents, and
8	WHEREAS, more than 2 million Floridians live in poverty and
9	approximately 2.8 million Floridians have no health insurance
10	whatsoever, and
11	WHEREAS, it is a moral incumbency that every Floridian have
12	access to quality, affordable health care, and
13	WHEREAS, impoverished Floridians have more difficulty
14	securing quality, affordable health care, especially if they are
15	uninsured, and
16	WHEREAS, Florida participates in the Federal Government's
17	Medicaid program to support those impoverished citizens and
18	ensure their access to health care, and
19	WHEREAS, when Medicaid was created in 1965, one of its
20	purposes was to reduce the differences among the states
21	regarding their respective abilities to fund medical services
22	for the impoverished, and
23	WHEREAS, federal funds for Medicaid are distributed to the
24	states based on a funding formula that uses per capita income
25	(PCI) as a key indicator of a state's ability to support its
26	impoverished population, and
27	WHEREAS, numerous reports from the United States General
28	Accounting Office dating back to the early 1980s demonstrate
29	that PCI is a poor indicator of a state's funding ability, and
30	WHEREAS, the use of PCI assumes that states with lower PCIs
31	have higher rates of poverty, which is a false assumption based
32	on data from the United States Census of 2000, and
33	WHEREAS, the funding formula does not account for states'
34	respective populations in poverty, the wealth distribution of
35	larger states, or the costs to serve Medicaid populations in
36	respective states, and
37	WHEREAS, the use of PCI in the funding formula fails to
38	accurately reflect the needs of the more populous states, and
39	WHEREAS, the use of a state's total taxable resources (TTR)
40	in the formula, as recommended by the General Accounting Office,
41	would result in Florida receiving hundreds of millions of
42	dollars more of federal funds in distribution, which amounts to
43	its fair share, and
44	WHEREAS, according to the 2002 financial data of the Agency
45	for Health Care Administration, uncompensated care in Florida's
46	hospitals is growing at the rate of 12 to 13 percent per year,
47	Medicaid caseloads grew almost 7 percent in the last fiscal
48	year, and the costs of the Medicaid program continue to grow at
49	an alarming rate, and
50	WHEREAS, because of the poor reimbursement rates offered to
51	Florida's physicians due to the disparity created by the funding
52	formula, many doctors have limited their provision of services
53	for Medicaid patients and some have stopped treating Medicaid
54	patients altogether, and
55	WHEREAS, this decline in the number of physicians who will
56	treat Medicaid patients threatens the quality and availability
57	of health care to impoverished Floridians, NOW, THEREFORE,
58
59	Be It Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
60
61	That the Congress of the United States is requested to pass
62	legislation to change the existing formula for the distribution
63	of Medicaid funds from a formula based on per capita income to
64	one based on total taxable resources plus the poverty rate,
65	thereby providing a more equitable distribution of Medicaid
66	funds to the states and bringing the Medicaid program closer to
67	compliance with its stated legislative goal.
68	BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be
69	dispatched to the President of the United States, to the
70	President of the United States Senate, to the Speaker of the
71	United States House of Representatives, and to each member of
72	the Florida delegation to the United States Congress.