Florida House passes Medicaid Privatization Plan–Who Gets Rich (the Insurers) and Who Will Receive Less Care (Patients)-Lack of State Developed IT Infrastructure at the Root

First of all let’s not forget who is running the state as Governor, a former CEO of HCA who admitted stole billions of dollars in Medicare/Medicaid funds. Does this give anyone any kind of a hint what the ride is going to be like? This again unfortunately comes back to 8 years of neglect with IT infrastructure which is the case all over the US and in the Capital too. When you look at how the US government operates Social Security, it runs cheap and efficiently. When you look at Medicare Part D and how it functions, then you enter the world of the financial algorithms for profit and they are not the same. In California it is hard to even find doctors who still take Medicaid.

You have to come out of denial and invest in IT at some point folks, healthcare and otherwise.

The real solution of course is to bite bullet, pay for State infrastructure to administer and do it. This battle will be going on in many other states and again when you have the “for profits” in here that spent the money on their IT infrastructures (and it still gets breached too) it’s called “shove the data” and see what falls out for those at the bottom of the totem poll. It’s a matter of pay me now or pay later as this will not in the long run save the state money as it’s only a temporary relief valve that will cost much more in the long run. One security breach will take care of that <grin>.

One representative said it did not work in the 5 pilot areas and we had HMOs big time here in California and they started out good but faded as well. In the money days the big IPAs made big bonuses for a couple of years on money saved, but then when a lot of the fat was removed, back to the same old same old. It’s a short term plan that has a big bite at the end of the so called rainbow. Again the only answer like all say is to invest in your people and that means a state agency to run it with some intelligence for efficiencies.

The more we outsource, the bigger the holes get and harder to dig out. I’m still amazed that the former HCA admitted fraudulent CEO was able to get elected governor as his background is clearly taking care of share holders, not patients and what is exactly the purpose of his new commission to examine government run hospitals? Is this to see how many can be turned private as well? He states that the government hospitals are using public money to unfairly compete with private facilities, huh??? BD

Private companies and networks of hospitals and other providers would deliver Medicaid health care services across Florida under Republican legislation that passed the state House on a largely party-line vote Thursday.

Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican who made millions as a health care CEO before his election, supports the managed care concept. The legislation goes to the GOP-controlled Senate.

Republican lawmakers argued that the measure would improve services, curtail fraud and hold down escalating costs. The $20 billion state-federal program covers 2.9 million low-income and disabled people including 27 percent of Florida's children. Those expenses, though, are expected to grow to $28 billion by the 2014-15 fiscal year.

Florida House passes Medicaid privatization plan - BusinessWeek