House Speaker Paul Renner and Senate President Kathleen Passidomo are cosigning on one another’s legislative priorities. During Tuesday’s opening session the leaders highlighted plans to address healthcare, support kids and protect the environment.
Senate President Kathleen Passidomo says when someone needs to see the doctor, they shouldn’t have to wait weeks, or in some cases months, for an appointment.
“If we do not take steps now to grow our healthcare workforce, all Floridians, and certainly those on Medicaid will continue to face barriers to care," Passidomo says.
Passidomo is pushing a healthcare package she calls Live Healthy. It works to grow the state’s healthcare workforce by increasing the number of residency slots, smoothing the path for doctors from other counties to work in Florida and helping patients establish a “medical home.” Democrats have pointed out one thing that’s missing is a plan to expand Medicaid. But during her remarks Passidomo said that’s a non-starter. “I understand the arguments both for and against. We’ve had the debate several times over the last decade. Medicaid expansion is not going to happen in Florida.”
Passidomo says her focus is on growing the healthcare workforce because if someone can’t get access to a doctor, it doesn’t matter whether and what kind of insurance they have.
In the House, Speaker Paul Renner says he supports Passidomo’s health access plans as well as a Senate plan to create a new teaching hospital focused on behavioral health. He says he also wants to create more transparency within the healthcare system. For Renner a major priority is battling the negative mental health impacts social media can have on kids.
“Children have always faced mean girls and boys, but social media changed the game and causes unprecedented damage to their mental health," Renner says.
Renner wants to put protections in place--like age verification to limit the ability for minors to access social media sites. Bills filed in the legislature would also work to deemphasize social media at school by requiring schools to stop using certain accounts.
Both leaders spoke in support of a plan that would use funds from the state’s gambling agreement with the Seminole Indian Tribe to support the Florida wildlife corridor and other environmental infrastructure projects—a move Passidomo says will protect endangered animals like the Florida panther.
