Florida: State Senate District 21

Candidates

Mike Bennett, Republican
C.J. Czaia, 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: Mike Bennett

I believe that every American is entitled to access to our judicial system and that we must be particularly vigilant about protecting the rights of vulnerable people including nursing home and ALF residents. That having been said, I do not believe that every unhappy event is necessarily the basis for a lawsuit. That’s why I vigorously fought for the compromise reached in Senate Bill (SB) 1202. Today, I remain fully committed to the enactment of SB 1202, as written, but I know that no law is perfect. That’s why I will continue to fight to assure that the principles upon which SB 1202 was based: quality of care, individual dignity, and affordable and available long term care, are adhered to in any further legislative efforts.

Candidate Response: C.J. Czaia

I am an experienced trial lawyer who has protected the rights of the accused in the field of Criminal Law. Today, I am the senior partner in the Law Firm of Czaia & Gallagher, P.A., where we focus our practice in the civil trial arena representing victims of accidents and injury cases.

I strongly oppose any caps on non-economic or compensatory damages. Our Judicial system already has checks and balances which limits jury awards. The Nursing Home Industry should improve the quality of service to its residents and not be looking for exemptions or immunity from their responsibility of insuring a quality life for its residents.

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: Mike Bennett

Our long-term care system is facing a crisis of unmet need. In 2001, Senate Bill 1202 was a strong first step in addressing the nursing home portion of that system. In 2002, CS/SB 1276 took us even further by authorizing the development of an integrated, consumer-directed, community-based long-term care system. But these laws are only just a start. As the Senator from District 21, I will fight for additional funding for community based long-term care services and work with the Department of Elder Affairs’ new Office of Long Term Care Policy to develop and implement quality long-term care options that offer seniors greater freedom to choose where, when and how they receive long-term care.

Candidate Response: C.J. Czaia

Hubert Humphry said, “The moral test of government is how government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the unemployed.” I support a policy that reflects these core values.

All Floridians deserve affordable, high quality health care that includes prescription drug coverage and long term healthcare. We need to get all the parties involved to sit down and come up with a solution that will work for all Floridians.

This nation spends more on health care than any other nation in the world. But we rank 36th in the world in Healthcare. What this means is that many of our citizens do not have access to healthcare. In our Nation there are over 43 million people who do not have health insurance. We have many rights in this Nation, but we have no right to healthcare or to quality long care. This is wrong and we need to change this failure of government. Florida must look to other States like Minnesota. We need to find programs that will insure all our people without taking away the rights of all parties involved.

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: Mike Bennett

Telecommunications-I believe that access to basic telephone service is as necessary as having access to electricity or water. This year, I voted for the telecommunications bill because I believe that, ultimately, it would benefit consumers. In the future, I will only support bills that preserve the low cost of basic telephone and meet the industry’s needs through other sources of revenue. Electricity- Based on the issues that California confronted in attempting deregulation, I would not support deregulation of the electrical industry at this time. Should the Legislature decide to support deregulation, I will fight to assure that the measure includes adequate and appropriate consumer protections.

Candidate Response: C.J. Czaia

I am opposed to legislation that will hurt the consumer. We need to come up with innovative solutions to our problems.