Florida lawmakers are poised to take up healthcare access and affordability issues, and that includes reviving pieces of a failed state healthcare reform plan. Ambulatory care centers, recovery care centers and direct primary care could get a second look.
Proposals include the creation of recovery care centers, where patients can go to recuperate following procedures. Another bill would allow outpatient ambulatory care centers to keep patients for up to 72 hours. A third would allow patients to set up private monthly payment arrangements to physicians, something known as concierge medicine. And the Senate is interested in more changes to the state’s Medicaid program. But AARP Florida spokesman Dave Bruns is concerned there are too many moving parts in the system with no clear direction:
“There’s going to be a lot of discussions in Washington. And decisions really can’t be made in the legislature until the decisions in Washington are a little clearer. So I don’t think we know what’s going to happen," he says.
Looming over it all is what will and won’t happen to the Affordable Care Act. Congressional Republicans are pushing a repeal, but what emerges from that push is unclear.
