Governor Rick Scott was in Fort Myers Monday morning highlighting job growth at the cancer genetic testing company NeoGeonomics Laboratories. Gov. Scott also addressed his recently announced hospital profit sharing proposal to help healthcare providers cope with the projected loss of the federal Low Income Pool program.
Gov. Scott recognized NeoGenomics Laboratories CEO Doug VanOort with the Governor’s Business Ambassador Award. “Today, over half of our company’s workforce is Floridian,” said VanOort. “As we’ve grown, we’ve expanded our workforce in Florida. In fact, during the governor’s time in office, we’ve grown from over 110 Florida employees to over 230 including our Tampa location and we’ve helped to relocate more than 80 out-of-state employees to our local Florida communities.”
Gov. Scott also talked about his proposal to help Florida hospitals cope with the loss of billions of federal dollars in compensation for indigent care if the federal government does not extend the Low Income Pool program. The LIP program is scheduled to expire June 30. “Like baseball, you have the major bigger market cities share with those small market cities,” said Gov. Scott.
“Our hospitals made $3.7 billion last year around the state and is there a way they could help other hospitals that are struggling that might lose money because of what the Obama Administration is doing?”
On Friday, Scott sent a letter to hospital executives throughout the state laying out his proposal, but said he has not yet heard any feedback from healthcare industry officials about the plan.
Scott said he also told U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell last week that not giving an answer on extending the LIP program is the same as saying, ‘no,’ and that Florida officials will need an answer soon as they prepare to head into a June special session to hammer out a budget for the new fiscal year which begins July 1.
