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Scott's Hospital Commission to Meet

Leon County Judge John Cooper on June 30, 2022, in a screen grab from The Florida Channel.
WMFE
/
The Florida Channel
Leon County Judge John Cooper on June 30, 2022, in a screen grab from The Florida Channel.

Florida Governor Rick Scott’s commission investigating hospital finances will meet for the first time today. The meetings come as Florida’s legislature preps for a special session.

Health care spending has been the big division in Florida’s budget thanks to a billion-dollar hospital fund that’s ending. Federal officials want Florida to expand Medicaid to cover Florida’s uninsured, and hospitals have been pushing for expansions.

Florida Governor Rick Scott’s hospital commission will take a deep dive into hospital finances, including CEO pay and money spent on lobbying. Scott has called for profit sharing among Florida’s hospitals.

Florida hospitals were asked to provide reams of financial data for the meeting, but many asked for clarifications or pointed to already existing public reporting.

The meeting will be all afternoon in Tallahassee, with 20 minutes for public comment at the end of the day. The commission will meet next in Orlando.

Abe Aboraya is a reporter with WMFEin Orlando. Health News Florida receives support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Health News Florida reporter Abe Aboraya works for WMFE in Orlando. He started writing for newspapers in high school. After graduating from the University of Central Florida in 2007, he spent a year traveling and working as a freelance reporter for the Seattle Times and the Seattle Weekly, and working for local news websites in the San Francisco Bay area. Most recently Abe worked as a reporter for the Orlando Business Journal. He comes from a family of health care workers.