Florida Hospital Council

Working to Ensure Quality Care for Florida’s Residents & Visitors
Council Lobbyist: Bill Rubin

Health care is the largest consumer of Florida’s budget, but the Legislature has not been able to meet existing needs in light of state budget deficits. Emergency rooms and trauma centers are becoming the source of health care for the poor. Florida’s number of uninsured is growing and with ever-shrinking sources of revenue, hospitals must work together to ensure the quality of care is not compromised.

AIF’s newest council, the Florida Hospital Council (FHC), was organized in late 2007 for the purpose of bringing attention to these concerns and the special issues hospitals face as major providers of health care in the state. Health care is not a commodity or a retail business; but to survive, hospitals must follow various business models nonetheless.

Hospitals strive to provide the best health care possible despite the burdensome regulations under which they operate. And with the growing number of uninsured persons in Florida, providing health care is more than challenging.

The FHC had its first meeting in January 2008. The group is made up of representatives from hospitals across the state. The Council’s priorities include, but are not limited to, Medicaid funding, fair Low Income Pool disbursement, and Certificate of Need.

FHC Issues

• Support full funding of Medicaid to take full advantage of federal matching dollars
• Support full funding of the Low Income Pool (LIP), which spreads dollars on a “broad and fair” basis to follow the indigent patient wherever care is provided, with non-recurring general revenue to take advantage of the full federal match
• Oppose deregulation of the Certificate of Need (CON) program, which will encourage the building of potentially unnecessary hospitals that only offer limited services, which will create excess capacity, increased health care costs, worsen the shortage of doctors and nurses, and diminish access to health care services and facilities