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Eyeball wars II: Senate OKs bills letting retailers set price for contacts

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The Senate Health Policy Committee on Monday gave the nod to a bill that would restrict contact lens manufacturers from preventing retailers from selling or advertising contact lenses below a set price. The bill, SB 1400 by state Sen. Tom Lee, brought lobbyists from Las Vegas, Utah, and Washington, leading former Senate President Don Gaetz to joke that Lee, also a former Senate president, deserved the “Visit Florida” award for the number of lobbyists who traveled to the state to testify on the…

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The day that was in Florida politics — March 18

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Wow, talk about a gaggle. If you want a good understanding of what separates the House and Senate as the session approaches the mid-point check out this exchange between state Sen. Tom Lee and a gaggle of reporters including The AP, Palm Beach Post, Tribune and the Times/Herald Capitol Bureau. It’s the best gaggle of the session so far. Lee’s bottom line is that the Senate will fill the billion-dollar hole created by the end of the Low Income Pool…

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Five minutes with Tom Lee — Talk of playing cards while building a budget

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The Senate Appropriations chairman is drawing a line in the sand. State Sen. Tom Lee wants clarity on healthcare spending before moving forward on building a budget and both state Sens. Aaron Bean and Renee Garcia are looking for the money to help him produce a balanced spending plan. The federal Low Income Pool program expires in June and the more than billion dollars it funnels to safety net hospitals evaporates. Lee said that’s an “untenable proposition” for the Senate,…

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Medicaid expansion and LIP alternative both in Senate budget, says Tom Lee

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The Senate budget will include nearly $3 billion in Medicaid dollars to expand coverage to roughly 800,000 people as well as an alternative plan to draw down supplemental Medicaid dollars to help pay hospitals and other providers for treating uninsured patients. That means the Senate and House budgets could be billions apart – a fact that could drag out the negotiations that usually occur between the two chambers. Sen Tom Lee said it would be “untenable” for the Senate to pass…

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Where does sh*t stand — the ‘legislative food fights’ edition

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Editor’s note: As the 2015 legislative session kicks into high gear, FloridaPolitics.com is continuing to report on several “legislative food fights” during the annual lawmaking period. These food fights don’t always make the front page of the traditional media outlets, but they are the kind of industry vs. industry or intra-industry turf battles that drive Tallahassee — and expand the field of play for state lobbyists. Here’s a look at where sh*t stands heading into the third week of session. Big…

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The week ahead in Florida politics

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At the state Capitol this week the budget begins to take shape and Rep. Richard Corcoran increasingly becomes the man to watch. By the end of the week the Senate will have released its budget allocation and Corcoran and Sen. Tom Lee, the two chambers’ appropriation chairs, will move closer to center stage as a spending plan begins to take shape. The House released its allocations, the amount of money dedicated to each spending silo; education, health care, etc., last week. The document left…

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Senate panel chairman suggests Amendment 1 backers may have misled voters

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State Sen. Alan Hays on Wednesday sternly informed a Senate subcommittee audience that the Legislature had not neglected the environment in past years, and that Amendment 1 supporters may have misled Florida voters. The ballot initiative, approved by 75 percent of voters in November, provides an estimated $22.6 billion toward water and land conservation over the next 20 years. Hays made the comments while chairing a meeting of the Senate Subcommittee on General Government Appropriations during a discussion of bills…

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