by Jackie Llanos, Florida Phoenix
December 6, 2023
Democrat State Sen. Tracie Davis of Jacksonville on Wednesday questioned the amount of $557,882 that has been set aside in the proposed state budget for next year. The money is for collecting data on the immigration status of hospital patients — a controversial initiative.
The half-million allocation is part of the overall proposed state budget for 2024-25 and includes the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, which Gov. Ron DeSantis revealed on Tuesday.
The $557,882 would go toward establishing a system to collect data on patients’ citizenship status from hospitals that accept Medicaid. As part of the immigration law that went into place in July, hospitals must include a question on their admission intake form about whether the patient is a citizen of the U.S., legal resident or undocumented immigrant. AHCA has to collect that data every quarter and submit a report to the governor, House Speaker and Senate leader by March 1.
Advocates say it has caused confusion and fear within immigrant communities in the state seeking medical care. A patient can decline to answer the question and their answer would not be reported to authorities, according to the law.
Davis was concerned during AHCA Secretary Jason Weida’s presentation of the budget Wednesday afternoon.
“When we were going through this, it talked about having minimal to almost no cost. AHCA was saying, ‘Hey, we can do this, we can handle it without any additional dollars,'” Davis said during the Appropriations Committee on Health and Human Services meeting. “Now, we’re looking at something with a price tag of $557,000. My question to you is, is that a minimal?”
The last staff analysis of the bill states the agency could collect the data and produce the reports with “minimal fiscal impact” because it had already made a similar report.
“I deal in big numbers. To me, as a person, $550,000 sounds like a lot, and I’m looking at all of these budgeted items that’s a number that’s relatively quite small to me,” Weida said.
He also said that the allocation would help with transparency.
All of the funds would come from the Health Care Trust Fund, with most of the money, $308,742, going toward salaries for four people, according to DeSantis’ proposed budget. However, the half-million would also go toward the collection of financial data from nursing homes.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Diane Rado for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.
