{"id":21863,"date":"2013-04-04T20:41:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-05T00:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=21863"},"modified":"2013-04-04T20:41:00","modified_gmt":"2013-04-05T00:41:00","slug":"florida-faces-the-loss-of-51-billion-in-federal-dollars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2013\/04\/florida-faces-the-loss-of-51-billion-in-federal-dollars\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Faces The Loss of $51 Billion in Federal Dollars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/baby-steps-to-a-baby-friendly-hospital\/100411leememorial\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16937\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-16937\" title=\"100411leememorial\" src=\"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/HPMC-100411leememorial0128-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/HPMC-100411leememorial0128-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/HPMC-100411leememorial0128-1024x682.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Lee Memorial Health System\u2019s elected\u00a0board of directors sent the attached letter to\u00a0the Lee County Legislative Delegation today addressing support for upcoming legislation that would\u00a0expand health insurance to 1 million of Florida\u2019s low income workers.\u00a0 What is good for working, low-income Floridians turns out to be great for our economy, too. The Florida Hospital Association reports that the economic impact of this expansion will create 121,000 jobs, including more than 10,000 in our community. We have an unprecedented opportunity to provide coverage for these and many more uninsured people using the federal tax dollars that the people of Southwest Florida are already paying.\u00a0\u00a0Florida faces the loss of $51 billion in Federal dollars\u00a0assigned to expand Medicaid over the next ten years.\u00a0 This is\u00a0money that the taxpayers of Florida are already sending to Washington, and\u00a0this money will go to other states if we do not find an alternate solution.\u00a0\u00a0We urge legislators to access those dollars for the short term, so we can expand insurance now and then take the next few years to work toward a better program.\u00a0 Passing along the unreimbursed costs of Medicaid, Medicare and charity care is a\u00a0\u201chidden tax\u201d on businesses\u00a0that provide insurance\u00a0and their employees who pay their share of coverage. This shell game may appear to \u201csave\u201d state and federal governments\u2019 money directly, but it\u00a0drives up the cost of business for everyone\u00a0and makes all Florida business less attractive and competitive over the next decade.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s remind our elected officials that the money for health coverage expansion is the people\u2019s money, not the federal government\u2019s money, and it needs to come back to the people of Florida.\u00a0\u00a0LMHS is\u00a0asking the community to back this effort\u00a0by contacting legislators in support of the expansion.\u00a0\u00a0 The following web site provides additional information as well as a link to assist the public in sending a message to local legislators:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<a title=\"This external link will open in a new window\" href=\"http:\/\/www.leememorial.org\/mainlanding\/affordable-care-act.asp\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.leememorial.org\/mainlanding\/affordable-care-act.asp<\/a>\u00a0.<\/p>\n<p>Read Letter <a href=\"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Legislative-Letter-2013.pdf\">Here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lee Memorial Health System\u2019s elected\u00a0board of directors sent the attached letter to\u00a0the Lee County Legislative Delegation today addressing support for upcoming legislation that would\u00a0expand health insurance to 1 million of&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":16937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21863"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}