By James Call
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wfsu/local-wfsu-953186.mp3
Tallahassee, FL – A Florida Senate Medicaid reform proposal would require obese people to lose weight and drug addicts to get help or lose their health care benefits. James Call reports.
Senator Don Gaetz helped write the proposal which will be released Thursday. He said the plan would require Medicaid recipients to assume personal responsibility for their health if they want to receive government paid health care. Morbidly obese people would be placed on weight loss programs and smokers and alcoholics would need to get treatment.
"If you allow those issues to go unresolved they not only compromise the quality of that person's life. And compromise the efficacy of any medical care but they drive up costs that are then shifted to the friends and neighbors who are actually paying the health care bill for the individual who is smoking and want to offload the cost of his smoking onto other people."
Gaetz said the reform measure will include incentives for patients to lose weight and stop smoking but did not provide details.