HM 0025

1
House Memorial
2A memorial to the Congress of the United States, urging Congress
3to change the existing formula for distribution of Medicaid
4funds.
5
6     WHEREAS, Florida is the fourth most populous state, with
716.4 million residents, and
8     WHEREAS, more than 2 million Floridians live in poverty and
9approximately 2.8 million Floridians have no health insurance
10whatsoever, and
11     WHEREAS, it is a moral incumbency that every Floridian have
12access to quality, affordable health care, and
13     WHEREAS, impoverished Floridians have more difficulty
14securing quality, affordable health care, especially if they are
15uninsured, and
16     WHEREAS, Florida participates in the Federal Government's
17Medicaid program to support those impoverished citizens and
18ensure their access to health care, and
19     WHEREAS, when Medicaid was created in 1965, one of its
20purposes was to reduce the differences among the states
21regarding their respective abilities to fund medical services
22for the impoverished, and
23     WHEREAS, federal funds for Medicaid are distributed to the
24states based on a funding formula that uses per capita income as
25a key indicator of a state's ability to support its impoverished
26population, and
27     WHEREAS, numerous reports from the United States General
28Accounting Office dating back to the early 1980s demonstrate
29that per capita income is a poor indicator of a state's funding
30ability, and
31     WHEREAS, the use of per capita income assumes that states
32with lower per capita incomes have higher rates of poverty,
33which is a false assumption based on data from the United States
34Census of 2000, and
35     WHEREAS, the funding formula does not account for states'
36respective populations in poverty, the wealth distribution of
37larger states, or the costs to serve Medicaid populations in
38respective states, and
39     WHEREAS, the use of per capita income in the funding
40formula fails to accurately reflect the needs of the more
41populous states, and
42     WHEREAS, the use of a state's total taxable resources in
43the formula, as recommended by the General Accounting Office,
44would result in Florida receiving hundreds of millions of
45dollars more of federal funds in distribution, which amounts to
46its fair share, and
47     WHEREAS, according to the 2002 financial data of the Agency
48for Health Care Administration, uncompensated care in Florida's
49hospitals is growing at the rate of 12 to 13 percent per year,
50Medicaid caseloads grew almost 7 percent in the last fiscal
51year, and the costs of the Medicaid program continue to grow at
52an alarming rate, and
53     WHEREAS, because of the poor reimbursement rates offered to
54Florida's physicians due to the disparity created by the funding
55formula, many doctors have limited their provision of services
56for Medicaid patients and some have stopped treating Medicaid
57patients altogether, and
58     WHEREAS, this decline in the number of physicians who will
59treat Medicaid patients threatens the quality and availability
60of health care to impoverished Floridians, NOW, THEREFORE,
61
62Be It Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
63
64     That the Congress of the United States is requested to pass
65legislation to change the existing formula for the distribution
66of Medicaid funds from a formula based on per capita income to
67one based on total taxable resources and the poverty rate,
68thereby providing a more equitable distribution of Medicaid
69funds to the states and bringing the Medicaid program closer to
70compliance with its stated legislative goal.
71
72     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be
73dispatched to the President of the United States, to the
74President of the United States Senate, to the Speaker of the
75United States House of Representatives, and to each member of
76the Florida delegation to the United States Congress.


CODING: Words stricken are deletions; words underlined are additions.