Florida: State House District 46

Candidates

Heather Fiorentino, Republican
Craig McCart, Democrat

Issues: Nursing Home Quality | Long Term Care | Utility Regulation |

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Question

Florida law provides the right to sue and recover damages when a long-term care facility provides negligent care that results in injury or death to a resident. What is your position on limiting non-economic compensatory damage awards against facilities whose negligent care results in a resident’s injury or death?

AARP Response

AARP believes that the right to sue a long-term care facility when negligent care results in a resident’s injury or death is essential to our efforts to ensure the quality of long-term care. Arbitrary limits on the damages awarded in lawsuits devalue the worth of older people and seriously impede or eliminate this right.

The staff report of the Task Force on the Availability and Affordability of Long-term Care found no frivolous lawsuits filed against long-term care facilities. Lawsuits are filed when residents suffer serious injuries and conditions such as bedsores, malnutrition, dehydration and broken bones.

The single-most important factor in preventing these problems is the presence of adequate numbers of well-trained staff. Florida law now provides for minimum staffing levels and the legislature appropriated the funds to achieve these levels.

Senate Bill 1202, passed by the 2001 legislature, created a carefully developed balance between regulation, quality, litigation reform, and funding. This important legislation will, when fully implemented, reduce the number of lawsuits, improve the quality of care and protect the rights of residents to seek redress in the courts when they are harmed.

AARP will oppose any change in the law that would alter the balance created in Senate Bill 1202 because any such change would be harmful to residents.

Issue	Yes	No	Unclear
Opposes any limits on compensatory damages for nursing home residents.
Supports protecting the right of residents to sue nursing home and assisted living facilities.
Opposes any changes to the law created by Senate Bill 1202 (Florida law 2001-45)

Candidate Response: Heather Fiorentino

As Legislature, one of our greatest duties is to ensure that our seniors have access to quality health and long-term care. During the 2001 Legislative Session, I fully supported the passage of Senate Bill 1202, which was designed to reform the Nursing Home Industry. I firmly believe Nursing Home should be required to provide the highest quality of care. It is important to ensure that the money from the State of Florida is used to improve care the elderly. As your State Representative, I will continue to support legislation which will promote high standards for the nursing home industry and protect our most vulnerable citizens.

Candidate Response: Craig McCart

There is often no other choice when seniors and/or their families look to nursing homes for care. Dignity, quality and affordable care, and thoughtfulness are of utmost importance to any senior or family facing this situation and they deserve to have the confidence to expect good performance in these areas of concern. If there is apparent gross negligence in care, nursing homes must be held responsible. However, increases in Federal and State government reimbursements to nursing homes for more staff, increased educational requirements and additional pay to attract qualified help such as Certified Nursing Assistants and decreased insurance rates for quality nursing homes offering quality care are far greater issues than reforming the current laws about the right to sue and recover damages.

Question

Many people cannot find affordable, quality home and community-based long-term care and face long waiting lists when they need help with the cost of their care. How would you improve the availability, affordability and quality of long-term care, particularly home and community-based care?

AARP Response

Long-term care services can be costly. Many people cannot afford to pay for them. Public funding for long-term care is limited and waiting lists for services are long. Many people do not have family or friends to help them and few have private long-term care insurance.

In addition, the current long-term care system is fragmented and confusing to those who need to use it. Public funding is used predominantly for nursing home care. The amount and quality of services is inadequate. Information about the availability and quality of services is not readily available to consumers.

Because of these problems many older people do not receive the long-term care services they need. They live in fear of impoverishing themselves and becoming a burden to their families. Their health and the quality of their lives decline unnecessarily.

Florida must have a comprehensive, cohesive system to meet the long-term care needs of all Floridians regardless of age and income. Creating such a system must be a legislative priority.

The system should:

• Be adequately funded,
  
  
• Emphasize home and community-based care,
  
  
• Focus on the needs of consumers,
  
  
• Provide for consumers to direct their own care,
  
  
• Support the role of families in providing care,
  
  
• Be easily accessible.
  
  
• Coordinate with private insurance coverage,
  
  
• Focus on the quality of care and the quality of life,
  
  
• Improve the coordination between health and long-term care services,and
  
  
• Be efficiently administered.
  
  

Issue	Yes	No	Unclear
Supports funding to eliminate current and future waiting lists for people who need financial assistance.
Proposes ways to meet the long-term care needs of all Floridians, not just those who need financial assistance.
Supports the development of a long-term care system focused on the needs of consumers not providers.

Candidate Response: Heather Fiorentino

In order to improve the quality and accessibility of long-term care for seniors, I will continue to explore innovative ways to provide our seniors with cost-effective choices. This past session, I co-sponsored the Consumer Directed Care Act, which gives seniors the opportunity select the type of long term care services they feel they need from a provider they trust. This program will empower seniors to make choices about the services they receive and will restore dignity to the aging process. Additionally, I pledge to continue the fight to preserve and increase CCE dollars, which are matched by the federal government. It is crucial to maximize our resources through programs such as the Medicaid Waiver in order to provide the highest quality services for our seniors.

Candidate Response: Craig McCart

The Legislature and state government officials must find ways to establish policies to encourage home and community-based care as an alternative to nursing homes. A senior who wants to remain in their own home must have the resources available to make this possible. Waiting lists for these services need to be eliminated. The Legislature needs to find ways to provide affordable, quality long-term healthcare and prescription drug prices so that nursing home care can be a last resort for seniors and families who wish to keep their loved ones in a home environment.

Question

In recent years the Florida legislature has considered a number of proposals that would alter the regulation of public utilities and benefit service providers at the expense of service consumers. How would you protect Florida consumers from unnecessary increases in their electric and basic phone bills?

AARP Response

The 2002 legislature passed legislation that would have increased consumer’s basic phone rates by as much as $8 per month. This legislation was vetoed by the Governor at the urging on AARP and other consumer groups.

Supporters of this legislation claimed it would stimulate competition in the local phone services and ultimately benefit consumers. The claim was based on the faulty idea that local phone rates are being subsidized by other services offered by local phone service companies. The bill was supposed to correct this subsidy problem.

AARP disputes that local service is subsidized and offers evidence to prove the point. (see AARP publication -- Current Issues in the Pricing of Telecommunications Services). AARP further challenged supposed consumer protections that were added to the bill. There was no consumer protection in the bill that would have offset the massive phone rate increases it would have led to.

Electricity: In the hope of encouraging lower prices, higher service quality and greater innovation, lawmakers across the country are considering whether and how to restructure the electric industry to allow consumers to purchase electricity from competing suppliers rather than from the traditional regulated monopoly structure. The Governor’s 2020 Energy Commission is considering restructuring in Florida.

The extent to which implementation of retail competition benefits residential consumers is unclear. Benefits in the form of lower rates are not guaranteed to residential ratepayers, who are at a disadvantage since they do not purchase enough electricity to be as attractive to competitors as industrial customers. If the outcome of restructuring is left entirely to the marketplace, residential consumers are likely to be the last class of customers to benefit if they receive any benefits at all.

If the electric industry in Florida is restructured, safeguards should be adopted that ensure just, reasonable and affordable rates and high-quality service for residential customers under retail competition. The legislature should ensure that residential ratepayers receive equitable and simultaneous benefits, including rate reductions, equal access and better service, from retail competition.

Issue	Yes	No	Unclear
Supports electric deregulation that specifically benefits the consumer.
Opposes an increase in basic consumer phone rates.

Candidate Response: Heather Fiorentino

I am pleased to say that my record reflects my commitment to protecting Floridians from private utility companies. I understand that many citizens, especially seniors, live on a fixed income and rely on the Legislature to protect them from unnecessary increases in their utility rates. I am proud to have been one of only a few legislators to vote AGAINST House Bill 1683, which would have increases citizen’s phone rates. Additionally, I work with the office of Jack Shreve, Public Counsel, to keep consumer’s prices down and to improve the quality of service constituents receive from private utility companies.

Candidate Response: Craig McCart

Deregulation of public utilities should be of utmost concern to the Legislature and the people of Florida. Florida needs only to look at what happened in California to realize that a similar electric deregulation initiative in Florida would not work and would be anti-consumer. Government regulation of electric and phone utilities is necessary to insure corporate responsibility and avoid an Enron type disaster for Florida residents. Consumers must come first in any consideration of utility deregulation.