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Ensuring Access to Quality Health Care for All Floridians When I was elected to office, Florida's health care system was inadequate and poorly prioritized, leaving far too few choices on how and where to find health care. But Floridians deserved more, comprehensive healthcare reforms that devote attention to individual care, maximizing efficiencies and ensuring our most needy received the care they required. Real Health Care Reform Taking Care of Our Children Understanding that a society is only as healthy as its youngest members, the Legislature created the Florida KidCare Program to provide low-cost health insurance for children whose parents might otherwise not be able to afford health care. Since the program's inception in 1998, enrollment has doubled to 1.5 million children today. Additionally, care for children while they are yet in the womb is now available, with the enactment of measures to provide high-risk pregnant women with affordable and vital prenatal care. Further concerns over health care accessibility led to the creation of the Health Flex Program to assist low-income families in obtaining health insurance, as well as comprehensive reforms addressing medical malpractice insurance and the shortage of doctors and nurses in the state. In response to inefficiencies and spiraling costs, historic and innovative Medicaid reforms are also in the works with the passage of legislation creating pilot programs focusing on recipient choice for the Medicaid program and the Medicaid Long-Term Care program. Ensuring Affordable and Accessible Health Care However, improving patient safety and quality of care is just as important as increasing health care affordability and accessibility. Knowing this, my colleagues and I sought increased health care quality and patient-safety measures. Thus, the “Patient Protection Act of 2000,” the Florida Commission on Excellence in Health Care, and the Florida Patient Safety Corporation all addressed improvements in Florida's health care delivery systems through stringent reporting standards, data collection and review, health care quality measurement, and coordination with health care providers to promote a culture of patient safety in the state. Furthermore, we implemented the Gold Seal Program to promote and recognize excellence in long-term care facilities. Increased training is now required in nursing homes, home health agencies, hospices and adult day care centers. Other landmark initiatives promoting nursing home diversion programs, community-based care, and assisted living facilities have resulted in older Floridians being half as likely to require long-term nursing home care as elders in other states. In fact, only 2.3 percent of Floridians aged 65 or older reside in a nursing home, compared with 3.8 percent nationally, which means more Floridians are enjoying the golden years of their life outside of institutionalized care. Providing a Choice Treating health care as a service and its patients as consumers has been a primary philosophy of the elected leaders in Tallahassee. A focus on providing health care consumers with choices and information to make informed decisions has been a consistent goal. HMOs are now required to provide more information to patients, and their doctors now have greater freedom in making final decisions about patient care without fear of retribution from HMOs. The “Consumer-Directed Care Act” was enacted to allow qualified individuals to direct their own care or appoint a representative to do so for them. And health care facilities are now required to provide consumer information on their websites, doctors are required to maintain physician profiles, and non-emergency health care cost estimates and the prices of the fifty most prescribed medications are now available to consumers. All of these efforts have increased the transparency of health care information and allow Floridians to make more informed decisions about the care they receive. With the creation of several initiatives for disease research, including the Women and Heart Disease Task Force, the Florida Alzheimer's Center and Research Institute, and hundreds of millions of dollars for grants to encourage research and innovation — it is safe to say that Florida has accomplished a great deal when it comes to prevention and treatment. Floridians' high quality of life is evidence that our efficient, individual based care approach is working. With any great idea comes great promise and room for improvement, such as in the area of biomedical research. We may have come a long way in a short time, but I certainly look forward to continuing the quest for high-quality affordable and accessible health care for all Floridians. Report Card
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For the last eight years, healthcare reforms have zeroed in on affordability, accessibility, prevention, quality of care and research for future prevention and treatment. The results have been dramatic. Cancer, influenza and pneumonia death rates in the state are down dramatically, teenage pregnancy has dropped over 30%, infant mortality has declined significantly, and the number of Floridians with AIDS has been cut in half. Child immunization levels increased from 63% in the early 1990s to over 85% today. These health advancements are nothing short of inspiring. Improving Florida's health care system and ensuring we are equipped to meet the needs of our growing and diverse population will continue to be one of my major priorities.