Amid AHCA scandal, Medicaid accountability bill heads to Senate floor

Members of a Senate spending panel on Tuesday agreed that there should be more oversight over the state program that pays health care costs for the poor, elderly, and disabled and passed SB 1060.

The bill, which heads to the full Senate next, establishes a Joint Legislative Committee on Medicaid Oversight to ensure transparency in the state’s Medicaid program, mostly administered through contracts with managed care plans.

It would require the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), which houses the Medicaid program and is charged with oversight, to by July 1 enter into a contract with the the state auditor general to maintain a data-sharing agreement. The auditor general is directed to assist the committee in its work.

With time ticking on the 2025 regular session, it’s not clear whether the bill will make it through the process, though. That’s because the House counterpart, HB 935, has yet to be heard in a committee.

Double checking AHCA

Sen. Jason Brodeur said he filed the bill because AHCA increased Medicaid reimbursement rates by $100 million over the amount that the Legislature appropriated in state fiscal year 23-24 to pay the plans. The agency, he said, held authority to increase the rates because Florida law authorizes agencies to make adjustments within 5%.

“So, this bill simply says we’re creating a joint committee with our own actuary. So that should we get those kinds of bills presented to us, we have our own folks we can ask to say, ‘Is this right?’ It may be. Probably is. But if we’re going to be spending that kind of money on a program this big, I’d like to have somebody who works for us tell us that’s the right number.”

Financial missteps dug a multimillion-dollar hole in Florida’s health care budget

Health care giant Centene writes a $10M check to Hope Florida Foundation

The bill comes amid a whirlwind of controversy surrounding AHCA, its role in a Medicaid settlement with health care giant Centene that directed $10 million to Hope Florida Foundation, and the foundation’s contributions to political committees fighting a proposed constitutional amendment to legalize marijuana.

The growing controversy, first reported by The Tampa Bay Times and the Miami Herald, has dominated the 2025 session and played a role in the Senate’s decision this week to not confirm two of Gov. Ron DeSantis’s choices to run large state agencies: Shevaun Harris as secretary of AHCA and Taylor Hatch as secretary of the Department of Children and Families.

Touching on the Hope Florida controversy, Sen. Jason Pizzo asked Brodeur whether the new joint committee would have authority over pre-suit settlements.

“I do not know,” Brodeur replied.

Pizzo followed, “Would you be amenable to taking a look as to whether or not the oversight board would be able to monitor pre-suit settlements of Medicaid overpayments?”

Brodeur said he would.

“It sounds reasonable to me, because the entire point of this is oversight to begin with. So whatever oversight that looks like, it should be comprehensive,” Brodeur said.