In fiscal year 2017 - 2018, Florida Hospital received $18,421,896 and ORMC received $10,753,953 to cover the costs of providing healthcare to the indigent and uninsured. That money comes from the State of Florida Agency for Health Care Administration Medicaid Program Finance Low Income Pool (LIP) program.
LIP was to have ended June 2017 according to the Obama administration because the Medicaid expansion that was coming would have covered what LIP had been covering since 2006. That expansion never came. In 2017 Governor Scott and the Trump administration said the LIP program would continue.
Now Florida Hospital and ORMC will be getting more money from it.
On June 11, Orlando City Council voted unanimously to adopt a resolution imposing an annual 1.29% non-ad valorem assessment on gross outpatient hospital service revenues, minus gross Medicaid outpatient hospital revenues at Florida Hospital, ORMC and Nemours Children's Hospital. That amount is not to exceed $56,967,142.
The funding from the City assessment will be transferred to the State to enable the State to draw down a federal match equal to approximately 150% of the assessed funds, thereby allowing the State to pay ORMC and Florida Hospital and Nemours a much higher percentage of their uncompensated charity care costs to maintain and even expand their charity care programs through LIP.
"Florida continues to leave billions of federal dollars on the table, due to its refusal to expand Medicaid," according to Florida Policy Institute.
"If Florida had expanded Medicaid, the state could have drawn down as much as $51 billion in federal Medicaid dollars over 10 years, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation." - Modern Healthcare