Inmate medical care costs local bill
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The county’s agenda for Board of County Commissioners, Dec 16, 2024
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The county’s minutes for Board of County Commissioners, Dec 16, 2024
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What was said
Machine transcription of 12m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 66% of 65 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
Got the housekeeping done. I think everything's rearranged. Got everybody got a chair. Uh so as um Mr. Kabbalah said, we you know we broke it down and we have eight policies uh that we uh wanted to put on as a priority. One of those, the first one is uh we're requesting a local bill. Uh this is dealing with our county inmate medical costs. And I'm gonna have uh Stacey Jenkins come up and uh she heads our uh correction facility here in Pasco County,
kind of explain the situation, uh, and then I'll give you a little bit of history uh about that. Yeah.
Good morning. Stacy Jenkins, Chief of Corrections. Um You know, we have a inmate population of about uh seventeen hundred inmates. And currently we're paying up to $2.25 million annually for outside medical costs. So we rely on our vendor to negotiate those hospitalization costs with um local providers. Typically they're getting a cost of about
130 percent Medicare rate. Um we're asking for a local bill that will cap those rates at 110 percent, which is similar to the Department of Corrections, uh which is um that is statutorily required. uh for DOC. So we're looking for a local bill currently, but ultimately we think this would benefit multiple sheriff's office and local jails to not relying on their vendors to negotiate rates for them.
Ralph, can you give a little history of some of the other counties that have done local bills?
So I was just about to say so one other county last year uh had the same issue and they ran a local bill. Uh Saint Lucie County, it did pass. No questions were asked uh on that one as far as any problem. But again This gets us to the same uh even playing field with the state. The state corrections has that gap. So if if it's to protect ourselves, if we don't have a contract in place, you know, we can ensure our
taxpayers won't have to pay more than that Medicaid rate. So I will be uh seeking a sponsor uh for that local bill. As we know. Local bills are only run uh on the house side. Uh so we'll just need a House sponsor. We'll not need a Senate sponsor for purposes of just explaining that to uh the public. House runs all the local bills. Once they pass out of the chamber, they go over to the Senate, and the Senate uh in session takes them up as a consent calendar
unless there are any questions, and then those bills are pulled off. Uh if there are any questions, so they'll they'll pass.
Um
Just a point of reference. House does local bills, Senate does claims bills, so Senate gets a task of carrying those bills uh for the public.
And confirmations. Yes, sir. Uh
Before we move on, Ralph, actually, I just I wanted to ask I want to ask the Chief one question on that. Chief, this is we're we're talking inmate health care costs, right? So these are folks that are in front in our facility. There was an incident on Friday where a suspect was was shot three times by Pasco County Sheriff's Office. Uh I assume that he is under our charge now and that those medical bills would fall to the taxpayers of Pasco County?
They would. Um as soon as that individual is arrested Um patrol will notify us and we will take um custody of of that individual at the hospital. So once we take custody of the individual at hospital, that's when our fees start.
We should wait till they're getting the lease from the hospital. Mm-hmm.
Um
I
I just I
just I just wanted to He just said some jurisdictions do that. I mean seriously. What are we thinking here? Can't we wait? So Let's make a dis let's make a judgment call.
It would be the sheriff's cost if it's not our cost. So I think you're gonna end up Splash anyway.
Well A A you're obligated to provide medical treatment for every input. You don't have a choice. Uh B the uh the Department of Corrections uh just last week came forward they have a five year contract with their medical care provider. Um who before the contract was a year old asked for additional funding. This year they're asking for an additional seventeen million dollars and already in year three they're projecting a shortfall of thirty
million dollars and we may be looking for a new contractor because they did obviously blowball bit and thought they could just adjust on the fly. Um and and the worst news for you, Madam Chief, is the local bill deadline was December the eighth.
Oh so none of these will
No th other that's the only local building we have. Oh Representative Maggard has one or two potentials that he's filed already. the the the Pasco delegation rules and Leslie rules as far as to have a deadline we have to we have to post them on the website.
I already did that and I also got it in the paper. So I got that deadline. That's not the state deadline. For the legislature. So we're still good on on getting a sponsor on that. But though he's the he's talking about for a delegation meeting on the seventh, uh they are on the website. We have two other local bills on the website as well.
You can't beat the deadline for this one. We don't have a sponsor, so December eighth is passed.
Oh, you mean I have to have a sponsor for the delegation meeting too?
All right.
All right.
Well um more discussion. Um something I've been working on on the national level and um this is uh priority of NACO. So so we're talking about medic Medicare reimbursement here, but that doesn't mean we're billing Medicare. This is straight that's just the rate, right? That's straight right out of our bank account. When someone gets arrested, um and is held in our jail, they lose their Medicare benefits. Um not not
in every state now. We've been able to change it so that states who have um suspend have a suspended Medicare program can get reimbursed. We have a termination Medicare program here in the state. So I don't know what that means. Um but Um when I showed this to Senator Rubio, uh it it came from the Social Security Act of nineteen sixty something. And um he said that he could see right away that it was a mistake in the language
that he felt that was written in the in um the act. Um, but there's no reason why if these if some of these people were on Medicare or Medicaid that it shouldn't be continuing and that we could build the feds and not build the county. So something that we focused on at the national level and I don't know what it means to take Florida from a suspend uh a termination to a suspension. Um But
That sounds like it should be a general bill that impacts the entire state at once to recover this short bill, not a local bill.
Does that mean that does that mean the state would have to cover the short wall
or or the at least allow the language to change I think the states is a hundred and ten percent of Medicaid rates on Medicare.
No, I'm uh I'm I'm talking about even bigger than that is if we if we work towards um changing the f federal language where inmates shouldn't get their health care benefits terminated until they're found guilty or something. This is while they're just being held in jail. And their families lose it. If if they were the the head of household and their family has coverage underneath them, the whole family loses their health care
benefits.
Congress is so good at at uh identifying these issues and reacting to it.
No, no we've been at it for like five years. We we moved to the at least the suspended states can can participate.
I
don't know what the big hold
of is. I would tell you that every county in this state is experiencing the same problem. Yeah. There are medical costs for their inmates.
So is this something that you think you might do for the whole state and then it's not a local bill?
I I I'm still shocked to find that Saint Lucie pulling it off as a local bill. Uh 'cause it kind of if if you were if if you were successful in getting us as a local bill, the remaining sixty five counties would have a local bill this year. Yeah. Asking for the same
relief.
Mm chair? Yes. So do you think we can ask the delegation to make this just a a statewide bill because if it did it for one, you should be able to do it for all of them, especially if this is the case.
And you do it for your own, why why would you not do it for the countists? What's the what would be the thinking?
Any member of the legislature can file a general bill. Um or whatever they're decided to you have to have a sponsor above check.
Well. So maybe change number one to
that deadline is on it. S you can still file a general bill up until the opening day of
Randy, do you have any thoughts on on that?
Um No, not really from the house. Uh I mean we're still organizing and uh they've cut back on certain things we can do.
Well stay on the House side, can't speak to the Senate, but the House. Thoughts are going to be. on the budget side. Um well probably until the end of this week uh we'll be officially organized the committees and everything and then we'll have more idea what we'll So I really don't have a lot to say about that because I I don't know myself.
Yeah.
Other than I have two locals. I think that's all I have.
But it seems like it would help the local county governments. Yeah, keep more money to run their jails. So
the the the house has the restriction of the the number of general bills you can file. The center's unlimited, uh My restriction is with my assignment, I'm filing no bills.
So you're down to like And it doesn't have to be a member of this delegation. It can be anybody in the list.
That's correct. And and uh to to add on to that, this is an issue that uh was picked up by the Florida Association of Counties. Uh they had some other issues dealing with uh inmate health care uh as part of their policy. So Since it was passed by the FAC, uh they can work on helping us get it a uh local um or a a bill sponsor for that.
Thank you. Uh before we go any further I gotta do a little housekeeping for the clerk. Uh Chairman if you'll just state your name and we'll go around the room so the clerk has that uh on there. Everyone state their name please.
Commissioner Kathryn Starkey.
Check Steinsnyder. Mike Carbala, Jonathan
Tilt, Matthew Watson, Ron Oakley,
Lisa Yeager,
Jaden Cagusa, Seth Weightman, Chase Bohannan, Randy Maggard, Jack Mariano.
Thank you.