Florida: State Senate District 25

Candidates

Jeffrey Atwater, Republican
Bob Butterworth, 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: Jeffrey Atwater

As a member of the Elder and Long Term Care Committee of the Florida House of Representatives I was deeply involved in the creation of the legislation which became Senate Bill 1202. This legislation established the highest standard of care for our nursing homes in the entire country (nurse hours per resident per day). We should be proud of our commitment to providing our senior citizens the highest level of care and we must not back down.

We must not deny any senior or their family access to our courts to receive the appropriate remedy for negligent care. Senate Bill 1202 established new standards to ensure that legitimate claims will be given their day court if no other means of resolving the claims are available.

Candidate Response: Bob Butterworth

As Attorney General, I fought to protect the rights of nursing home and assisted living facility residents and their families by combating Medicaid fraud and ensuring that quality care is provided to all residents. A key element of my fight was holding these entities accountable for their actions or inactions. I support existing state laws on nursing homes and assisted living facilities. As Senator, I will continue fighting to protect residents and their families by ensuring that their rights to sue nursing homes and assisted living facilities for negligence are not infringed upon. I strongly believe that negligent facilities that cause a resident’s injury or death should be held accountable for their actions (or inactions) and would oppose limits on compensatory damages for any victim.

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: Jeffrey Atwater

Home and community based care must be at the top of Florida’s agenda! Our planning starts with the needs of Floridians: health, transportation, housing, etc. From our needs assessment comes our action plans to determine just how we will deliver the finest services to meet these needs. Finally, we identify the financial resources to accomplish the long-term plan. Historically we have had a problem of starting with a set dollar amount and then working backwards to determine how much we can provide.

In updating our needs assessment annually we will evaluate our delivery systems (quality of service providers) to ensure that all Florida residents have the access to home or community based care that is affordable and representative of the full dignity they deserve.

Candidate Response: Bob Butterworth

While nursing homes play an active role in caring for Florida’s seniors; nursing homes and assisted living facilities should not be the primary option for our senior population. Affordable health care is one of the biggest challenges facing seniors today. Florida needs more affordable long-term health care alternatives such as in-home and community based care, which costs substantially less than the costs for nursing homes. As Senator, I will support such alternatives and I will support funding to provide financial assistance to those who need long term care. In addition, I will support funding to eliminate current and future waiting lists for people who need financial help with the cost of their long-term care.

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: Jeffrey Atwater

There is a tremendous need to establish additional energy generating capacity in Florida. Likewise, we need to ensure that all Floridians have the lowest phone service charges possible by creating a good competitive environment for service providers to fight for our trust and our business.

The time is now to get moving on new energy generating capabilities and stop focusing on how we protect those who wish to limit generating capacity to keep utility rates high. By allowing for competition within the energy generation industry in Florida (while keeping a eye on environmental safety standards) we can ensure that Floridians will have clean, safe, abundant and much more affordable utility services for years to come!

Candidate Response: Bob Butterworth

During my past 16 years as attorney general I led the charge to protect the citizens of the State of Florida from consumer fraud. Within that time, my offices have sued such companies as BellSouth and MCI over their billing practices. These lawsuits led to multi-million dollar settlements in favor of the citizens of this state. While Attorney General, I was named the “most feared consumer crusader” by a national magazine, and as State Senator, I will continue to fight to protect consumers from unfair and deceptive trade practice. As such, I oppose increases in phone rates and would consider electric deregulation only if it would benefit Florida consumers.