Published: Saturday, November 3, 2012 at 7:23 p.m. Last Modified: Saturday, November 3, 2012 at 7:23 p.m.
Instead, more than 3 million people in Florida from infants to the elderly who get their health care under Medicaid will be affected in different ways depending on whether President Barack Obama is re-elected or voters choose GOP challenger Mitt Romney.
About 16 percent of people in Florida receive health care under Medicaid, the federal-state program for the poor and disabled. More than one-quarter of Florida's children, half of all baby deliveries and 63 percent of nursing home days in the state are covered by the program.
Significant attention in the campaign has focused on how best to preserve Medicare, the federal health care program for people age 65 and over. But Obama and Romney are also pushing widely divergent plans for dealing with Medicaid.
Obama wants to expand Medicaid as a key component of his Affordable Care Act, providing care to more people by raising the eligibility limits. Romney, who wants to repeal the health care law, has advocated converting Medicaid into a grant program that would give states much more flexibility in deciding who should be covered by the system.
Like other proponents of the approach, Romney says the grant system would allow the federal and state governments to better control rising costs.
State leaders across the country have balked at the rising bite that Medicaid takes out of their budgets, especially after the Great Recession and plummeting tax revenues have forced numerous cutbacks. Florida's Medicaid costs alone have more than doubled since 2001, with more than 1 million more people joining the state's programs since 2007.
Among other measures, Florida has tested and is pushing for approval to expand statewide a managed care program to rein in costs.
But critics warn the block grant approach which would essentially cap costs with a factor for inflation and population would result in deep cuts in services, impacting some of Florida's most vulnerable residents, ranging from children in families struggling with little income to frail seniors in nursing homes.
A study last month by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows Florida could lose as much as $33.3 billion over the first 10 years of a block grant program based on a plan passed by the U.S. House and back by Romney's running mate, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin. Nationwide, the block grant program would cut Medicaid spending by $810 billion in the same period.
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Future of Medicaid hangs on election
