The new health care laws will cost Florida a billion dollars a year by 2019, according to a report by the Agency for Health Care Administration. The cost will go up because more Floridians will qualify for Medicaid. Supporters of the new regulations say it will save the state in the long run because more people will be getting cheaper preventative care.

About four million Floridians are living without insurance. The new health care regulations will allow 1.7 million of them to get coverage through Medicaid by 2019. Adding that many people to the Medicaid rolls will cost the state a billion dollars with the first payment coming due 2014.

That’s when the state will have to fork over 150 million dollars to get the ball rolling. The statistics are from the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration.
Attorney General Bill McCollum, who is suing to block the new regulations, says the bill could be much higher.

“It will cost taxpayers 1.6 billion dollars.

Representative Kevin Ambler, who is cosponsoring legislation supporting the AG’s suit, hopes to reverse the new laws before the check comes.

“There’s a number of legislative bills going through the House right now that will challenge the constitutionality of that legislation. So it’s difficult to say what the end result is going to be. This may be caught up in litigation for a number of years.”

Supporters like Richard Polangin of The Florida Public Interest Research Group says over the long haul the changes will actually save the state money

“If people get preventative health care they can avoid the onset of illness, thus saving the taxpayers a great deal of money.”

The price tag may be high for the state but the federal government is kicking in the most money. The feds will pay for 90 percent of the new Medicaid costs.

A Congressional study claims the changes will save the country a trillion dollars by the end of the decade, through disease prevention.