The Florida Retail Federation and a number of health plans announced legislation that fails to address the growing uninsured crisis in Florida or the unfulfilled legislative mandate to provide consumers with additional information on health plans, retail pharmacies, and physicians.

“Instead of seeking solutions to reduce the $2.4 billion in uncompensated care provided by Florida’s hospitals, the Health Check members instead have proposed regulations which add further cost to our healthcare system,” said Wayne NeSmith, President of the Florida Hospital Association (FHA). When 1 out of 4 Floridians under the age of 65 have no health insurance, it would benefit all Floridians for Health Check members to address the real crisis at hand, the growing numbers of uninsured. According to Families USA, to cover the costs of the uninsured, on average, Floridians paid $468 in extra premium for individual coverage and $1,313 in extra premium for family coverage.

The hospital community invites the members of Health Check to join FHA in addressing the uninsured in Florida and encourages them to offer a plan, which provides premium assistance to small businesses, much like the uncompensated care provided by Florida’s hospitals. The addition of $2.4 billion in premium subsidies funded by Florida’s health plans would assist small businesses and families that currently have no coverage.

FHA has long supported health information transparency and participated in the passage of legislation (CH. 2004-297), which created the Agency for Health Care Administration’s (AHCA’s) consumer Web site. Additionally, FHA also developed its own Web portal (www.floridainformedpatient.com) to add additional information not available on the AHCA site. To date, the majority of information available on the AHCA site is hospital data and limited pharmaceutical information. Missing from the site are health plan pricing, retail pharmacy pricing, and physician information. These three critical data elements are mandated by the statute, yet remain unpublished for consumers to use.

The Florida Hospital Association remains committed to health information transparency, but it must include all healthcare providers and not just hospitals. Consumers want to compare health plans before making a purchasing decision. Small businesses want to know what their options are and what the co-pays, deductibles, and premiums are as well as the adequacy of the plan’s physician and hospital networks. Consumers also seek pricing information from their local pharmacy as well as their physician. All of this information is mandated by the 2004 legislation and required to be published on the AHCA Web site, pursuant to state law.