Late News; Fla. legislators OK Medicaid pilot.(Bon Secours Cottage Health Services' CFO pleads guilty to fraud)(Legacy Health System appoints Lee Domanico)

Modern Healthcare, December, 2005

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's plan to move Medicaid beneficiaries into private managed-care plans won approval from Florida's Legislature in a special session. The bill, which awaits Bush's signature, authorizes a one-year pilot program starting July 1 in two counties as well as subsequent analysis of the program. It calls for the program to be expanded statewide by 2011. Federal officials would have to clear future expansion. Under the program, most Medicaid enrollees would switch to managed-care plans or provider service networks or opt out and use Medicaid money to buy private insurance. Alan Levine, secretary of Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration, said in a conference call it was wrong to describe the initiative as privatization, saying the new program "was...

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