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Health care impasse is a problem for the “image of the Republican Party in America,” Tom Lee says

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Senate Appropriations Chairman Tom Lee said on Tuesday that he had a face-to-face meeting with Gov. Rick Scott Monday night, the first one of the session focusing on the substantive difference between the Senate and the governor’s office on the health care financing impasse. Lee told reporters that Scott initiated the meeting and that he went down to the governor’s office. While there wasn’t anything “illuminating” Lee said he was grateful for the conversation.  “I think everyone is realizing this…

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Despite bluster, Rick Scott administration moves ahead with hospital plan

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Gov. Rick Scott’s administration is taking steps to try to win federal approval of a plan to draw down federal health funds after being criticized for not doing enough to ensure supplemental hospital funding will flow to the state. The Agency for Health Care Administration has scheduled three, two-hour meetings in Orlando, Miami and Tallahassee on April 29, April 30 and May 1, respectively, to take public testimony on an amendment to its sweeping Medicaid 1115 waiver. The amendment is…

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Pam Bondi says she’ll join Rick Scott in Medicaid lawsuit

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Attorney General Pam Bondi said she will help Gov. Rick Scott sue the federal Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services for withholding supplemental Medicaid funding for Florida’s hospitals. In a release Bondi said her office “led the lawsuit that stopped the federal government from forcing states to expand Medicaid and we will not sit by while the Obama administration holds hostage LIP funding in an effort to force the expansion here in Florida.” Scott’s office on Thursday issued a statement…

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Senate grills, then confirms AHCA Secretary Liz Dudek

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The Senate Ethics and Elections Committee voted 8-1 to approve Liz Dudek‘s appointment as head of the state Agency for Health Care Administration but only after she answered more than an hour’s worth of questions regarding Low Income Pool funding, Medicaid expansion and how negotiations are evolving with the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Senators asked some pointed questions and Dudek–a longtime state healthcare planner who is held in high regard by the Florida Legislature–gave senators the answers…

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Break over, Congress faces fights over Medicare, Iran, AG nomination

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Racing the calendar, Senate leaders are pushing toward congressional approval of a bipartisan compromise that reshapes how Medicare pays physicians as lawmakers return from a spring break tangled up in domestic and foreign policy disputes. Republican and Democratic senators are trying to influence an emerging nuclear deal with Iran, and there’s a fight over abortion. Also, President Barack Obama is awaiting Senate action on his long-delayed nomination of federal prosecutor Loretta Lynch to become attorney general. For Senate Democrats, the…

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Tom Lee says he’s making plans on how to bring the session in for a landing

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Senate Appropriations Chairman Tom Lee said Thursday night that he is beginning to make plans on how to bring the 2015 session in for a landing if legislators cannot solve the budget impasse between the House and Senate spending plans. Lee said the chambers need to reach some sort of accord by “the middle of next week or thereabouts and then we are out of business.” Then the questions become whether the Legislature extends the regular 2015 session or whether the…

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Bill Nelson says Florida shouldn’t be playing chicken with health care for the poor

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Amid a deteriorating budget stalemate that is splitting Republican legislators, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson stepped into the fray with a message that the loss of more than $2 billion in Medicaid dollars for hospitals is a real threat. “The day of reckoning is here,” said Nelson, who made a quick visit to the state Capitol Wednesday. Nelson’s blunt message–which he delivered to both House Speaker Steve Crisafulli and Senate President Andy Gardiner–wasn’t reflected by House Republicans in their debate about…

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