>>This week on NewsNight, a look at what the Big Beautiful Bill Act could mean for Florida's Medicaid program, its enrollees and local hospitals.

Plus, new state figures show a 6% increase in the number of A-rated schools in Florida.

NewsNight starts now.

[MUSIC] Hello, I'm Steve Mort, welcome to NewsNight, where we take an in-depth look at the top stories and issues in Central Florida and how they shape our community.

First, tonight, the sweeping new tax and spending bill signed into law by President Trump earlier this month.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is poised to reshape Medicaid with hundreds of billions o dollars in cuts over a decade.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates nearly 12 million people will become uninsured as a result.

Florida never expanded Medicai under the Affordable Care Act, but still faces complex challenges with more than 4 million enrollees.

Hospitals are also bracing for funding losses.

Total Medicaid spending i Florida tops $30 million a year.

Around two thirds of that money comes from the federal government.

I spoke earlier this week with Meghan Bowman, part of the Your Florida team at WUSF, a public media reporting project focused on state governments.

>>It's going to hav a very big impact on Floridians, because this bill stand to slash about $800 billion from the federal contribution over the next decade.

>>Florida is not a Medicaid expansion state.

Of course, a lot of states have really leaned in to expanding Medicaid to sort of close some of those coverage gaps.

Does that mean that the impact of the Big Beautiful Bill might be less in Florida when it comes to Medicaid than in other places?

>>So, yes, Florida is not an expansion state, and there are certain things that will impact those states who have expansion a little differently.

Here in the Sunshine State, those rollbacks for Medicaid could be devastating to hospitals and clinic in rural and underserved areas.

That's because these, you know, these institutions typically really rely on Medicaid reimbursements for their operations.

And whether you have private insurance or not, you may feel the impacts, especially if your local hospital closes and then you're expecte to travel three hours for care.

So that's especially prevalent in, mothers and for mothers and babies and your labor and delivery units.

You know, that could really pose a risk for your you know, pregnant women who it's, you know, if you're in labor and there's no labor and delivery service available and you have to travel three hours to get there.

That causes a huge risk.

>>What about seniors, Meghan?

I mean, is there an impact there for coverage that people rely on as they get into their older years?

>>Absolutely.

Medicaid also pays for a majority of senior in nursing homes, and it's also one of the primary payers for long term care.

So care for nursing home residents takes in about 58%.

So that's over half of Florida' medical dollars that they get.

So that would have a hug impact for our older community and our seniors, who rely on that.

>>Finally, I wanted to ask about the potential impact for the state here.

You reported from your analysis, the numbers about two thirds of Florida's Medicaid spend comes from federal dollars.

What is the impac potentially for state coffers, when this sort of all comes down the pike is implemented?

>>I think that's the big question.

So will Florida put up those dollars to kind of fill that gap?

The state hasn't said whether they will or not.

If we're looking at, say, SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, typically the state has not picked up federal dollars sitting there on the table.

Right.

So are they going to pick up that gap to fund that money that you know they'll lose from those Medicaid cuts?

It's a it's a waiting game.

I guess we'll see.

>>Th state also has some restrictions on how it can raise money, right, to sort of meet that shortfall.

>>There were regulation put into effect with this bill that makes it more difficult for the state to raise money, and that's by putting a cap on what's called provider taxes.

So those provider taxes are from nursing homes and and hospitals.

That money then goes into that.

So those provider taxes have funded a lot of it.

You know but with that cap that limits how much they can raise.

>>Meghan Bowman from WUSF there in Tampa.

Well, let's bring in our panel now to break it all down.

Joining us in the studio this week, Geovany Dias, reporter for WFTV Channel 9.

Good to see you, Geovany.

>>Thanks for having me.

>>Thanks so much for coming back on the show.

Really appreciate it.

Beth Kassab, regular of the program from the Winter Park Voice.

Good to see you Beth.

>>Thanks for having me.

>>And Joe Mario Pedersen cover health care at Central Florida Public Media.

Good to see you Joe Mario.

>>Always happy to be here.

>>Well, because this is your beat.

Let's start with you.

You've looked into the issue of cuts to Medicaid.

What have you found that this might mean for Florida?

What should people know about these changes?

>>So I think one of the bi things that they should know is how much Florida was spendin as far as Medicaid, Medicaid goes.

Right.

So $34 billion, Florida was spending two thirds of that was provided by the federal government.

So Florida was roughly spending about 10 to $12 billion.

So Florida is going to have to make up the rest of that somehow.

So what we can expect fro that Medicaid payments roughly to rise between 9% and 18%, where that's leading to ultimately is probably a future where we see more uninsured people.

I've seen different figures on this.

One of the more prevalent figures that I've seen is in the next ten years, we will probably see 2.4 million people uninsured as a result of this bill.

There's a lot of other things that go into this.

I know that we'll probably be talking about the effects on rural hospitals who will be taking a big hit from this as well.

>>Yeah.

I mean, in terms of the Medicaid coverage gap that you referred to, that Florida didn't, as I said earlier didn't expand Medicaid before.

I wonder if that gap could increase, though.

>>Yeah, that's somethin that we are all concerned about.

Right.

Because here's the thing.

We understand that, as you mentioned, Florid did not expand their coverage.

And also a lot of peopl don't qualify for the Affordabl Care Act in Florida.

So there is a there's a massive gap there.

So a lot of people could still lose, qualify for that for for Medicaid Medicaid-- >>That coverage.

What do you think?

>>You know if I could jump in there, just I mean, you're absolutely right that we will probably see that increase, that gap.

I think one thing to, like really take into consideration, though, is the fact that that gap already is bigger than we probably realize.

And that's before these effects go into, into play.

Right?

And what I'm referring to there is between 2023 and 2024, Florida, just like the rest of the country, went through a medicaid redetermination period.

What that means is, they reviewed everybody's Medicaid, and took a look at who was still eligible-- >>Following the pandemic.

>>Following the pandemic.

Exactly.

And what happened was over a million people, were terminated from coverage.

And something important to remember there is about 500,00 of those people were children.

A number I really want you to hang on to here is 80,000 children.

Moved over to the state's CHIP the Children's Health Insurance Program.

Right?

420,000 of those kids.

We don't know what happened to them.

The state did not track that.

It's possible that they moved over into private insurance because their family members got new jobs.

But what's very likely is that a large portion of that number probably is uninsured, and they don't know it.

>>Well that's patients.

What about the health care industry?

The medical industry itself?

KFF Health News actually estimates that Medicaid accounts fo nearly a fifth of all hospital spending that's nationwide presumably similar in Florida.

I mean, could we see an effect on the hospitals in Florida?

We have rural hospitals here.

>>We do.

And yes, I mean, there will absolutely be effects here in Florida and across the country.

The outlook, if you're in the healt care business right now is pretty bleak because this does make up, as Joe Mario said a large percentage of payers.

Right.

So, health care lobbyists have traditionally been really successful when it comes to pushing, for policies that hel keep hospitals alive-- >>That's uncharted territory for them.

>>It absolutely is.

This is not an industry that i used to not getting their way.

So this will be very interesting, to see what happens because this is typically a very powerful lobby.

When you think of hospitals, insurance companies, doctors groups, you know, all the players that make up health care coming togethe and they're usually in unison.

And we will see hospitals close as a result of this.

Right now, what we're seeing discussed most is hospitals in the rural areas.

There are some in Florida.

And if, you take out a big portion of their payer mix, these are hospital that don't have as many private PE folks, insurance insured people.

You know, there tha that leaves them in a huge bind.

>>Yeah.

What are you hearing about the hospitals, Joe Mario?

>>I mean, just like Beth said, it's the rural hospitals in particular that are going to take a big hit from this.

I've seen different estimates here in Florida as far as what they'r predicting that might look like.

As far as closures go.

Right.

At least ten, that are threatened, of closure.

Right.

And two that are facing extreme likelihood of closure.

Those numbers are not hard figures, right?

But what is crysta clear is exactly what Beth said.

Hospitals are going to close in the next ten years.

>>And let's be clear that it will start with the rural hospitals.

But what this is not just about providing health care.

Let's also consider wha hospitals mean for local jobs.

In the city I cover, Winter Park, AdventHealth is the largest employer.

>>Yep.

>>So and that is-- >>The are massive employers.

>>Right.

And that is the case, across Florida as well.

No matter which hospital system is dominating.

>>And let's remember also that Florida already is not the greatest when it comes to health care coverage around, you know, around the country.

Because according to this study that was published just last year from WalletHub, 2024, Florida was the number 42 in the country that we have 50 states.

So it's very low already.

And that study that they published last year was they were looking t the availability of hospitals, as you mentioned, they looked into the number of patients per, nurses and health care providers.

So we are already in a bad position and it could get worse as time goes on.

>>It's a great point.

In the last ten years we've already had five hospitals closed down.

Creating these health car shortages, throughout the state.

And like, those shortages existed i so many different ways.

Right?

We have mental health care shortages, dental shortages, ObGyn shortages.

Yeah.

So, yeah, the state is already, as you pointed out, in a bad spot when it comes to health care.

>>I guess some of this, i medium to longer term impacts.

I mean, I wonder if we could see impacts, say, on a hospital's to access to people's coverage in the in the near term, or is this something people are going to have to wait for a while to, to see the impact >>That's a really good question.

As far as there's no clear cut answer from what I've seen on that, we can probably start seeing the effects of this, as early as next year.

I've seen some studies sa that we'll probably - hospitals will probably start feelin the effects of this come 2028.

But the full effects will be by about 2034.

>>At the same time as all of this is happening, there is another push in Florida, right, to get, Medicaid expansion on the ballot.

I guess in lieu of, legislative action from lawmakers, WFTV has covered that effort.

What do we know about who's behind it?

>>So yeah, so Florida Decides Health Care, a group.

They're the ones that are championing this initiative They are trying to get that into the next year, into November of last year's ballot.

Sorry, Novembe next year's ballot.

>>Next year.

We got a while yet.

>>Yeah, I know right.

So the plan here is try to get that, debate to going to the ballot, and then folks could vote on that.

And eventually we would have to expand the coverage for Medicaid across across Florida.

But this is a very long shot because we were talking about more than a year from now and also expecting that people are going to vote for it in favor of that.

And we have seen over and over again that we are kind of Florida kind of aligns with the national discourse when it comes to funds and health care in all of those debates regarding immigration and all of that.

So I don't see that going through.

But that is the that's the point here.

That's the initiative that we are talking about.

>>I want to talk a little bit about Planned Parenthood for a minute.

The group recently announced it would merge its clinics in Florida amid Medicaid funding threats in the state's six week abortion ban.

Although Florida law has long barred Medicaid from covering abortion, a provision in the Big Beautiful Bill Act block funding for Planned Parenthood.

A judge put a temporary stay on enforcing that part of the law, but the organization say the legislation could jeopardize other services for Medicaid patients at its facilities.

Michelle Quesada from Planned Parenthood of Florida says it could leave many people without health services.

>>Thi is a rapidly changing situation, and we continue to explore ways that we can continue to help these patients.

You know in other areas of the country, there are Medicai expansions in states where there are wa more Medicaid patients that depend on Planne Parenthood health centers.

In Florida, there are thousands of patients that depend on Planned Parenthood for life saving cancer screenings for STI testing, for birth control, and those are all services that they would not be able to access if if this, care goes awa for the Medicaid participation.

>>Michelle Quesada there fro Planned Parenthood of Florida.

Joe Mario, you've covere this Planned Parenthood merger.

Let's talk about that first.

What does that look like?

Why did the organization say it was necessary to do that?

>>So one thing to to get off the table as soon as possible is, the CEO wanted to mak very clear that this was a plan that was in the works for about a year and a half.

Now, as far as the timing goes, it just kind of happens to line up, with the president's signature of the big, beautiful bill.

Right?

But they did see i as something that was necessary, as a way of kind of consolidating, their services, unifying the services that they offer.

So, for example, one chapter, would offer, prenatal services up to 14 weeks, whereas the other chapter, did not.

Right.

So this was a way of creating a unification with the 17 clinics, within the state.

It was also a way of, creating more business, within other days of operation, their hours of operation, the availability of telehealth appointments, you know, having more of that.

>>Which is important to people in rural areas, of course.

>>Very much so.

And, you know, it' something that you pointed out, you know, as far as that, that one year ban of Medicaid, reimbursements, toward, nonprofit health care centers Planned Parenthood, of course.

This is a this is supposed to affect a huge portion of the clinics available in the country.

I've seen one estimate that says that it might close down 200 clinics.

Speaking to the CEO, they're predicting with this merger, that they don't suspect that in the next, in the next year or so, any of its 17 clinics, to, to close down.

So they are expecting to kind of, hold the line.

Right, while this goes on.

>>But an awful lo to follow over the near, medium and long term when it comes to health care, for sure.

You can find a link to an in-depth analysis of the Medicaid provisions in the new law from KFF Health News on our website.

You'll also find a link to the full text.

The One Big Beautiful Bill out there as well, and my interview with Meghan Bowman from WUSF.

It's all at wucf.org/newsnight.

Okay, Florida's latest school grades are out, with 28 districts earning A ratings, including man in Central Florida.

And accordin to its own metrics, the state says the numbe of A-rated schools is up 6%.

Orange County School Superintendent Maria Vazquez says the district has been helped by a new statewide system for assessing students, which instead of using a single test at the end of the year, include multiple assessments throughout.

>>We're an A district.

We have seen, increase in almost every one of the categories thanks to the incredible work of our teachers and our suppor staff, our students and our families.

But I do thin it is a reflection of the work that's taking place because we have seen not only growth, but we've als seen increases in proficiency.

I also want to sa that the new assessment system that the state of Florida put into place, has helped us tremendously to be able to identify much sooner if a child is struggling so that we can then intervene and provide the necessary support so that the child can do better.

And I think there isn't enough conversation around what the impact of the new assessment, has had on the scores, because now you have a snapshot at the beginning of the year, you have a snapshot in the middle of the year.

Parents have access to that.

And so they to can work in partnership with us to help their child overcome some of those deficit areas or the area that they have not yet mastered.

>>Maria Vazquez, Superintendent of Orange County Public Schools.

Beth, let me start with you on this one.

I mean, the state has hailed these A grades for the districts and schools.

Students, according to the state, that they're reading an math scores are also improving.

But the data does show struggles do continue, right?

>>Oh, absolutely.

There were some surprise in this year's round of grades.

And, there are also some pretty serious questions being raised about how much of these grades are a sales job put out by the state of Florida, and how much do they truly reflect the state of the schools?

Because this is not supposed to be a participation trophy.

Florida's school accountability system was never designed for that.

We should be able to have faith when we look at these scores that they truly represen what's going on in the schools, and there have been so many changes there.

There's a lot of questions about that right now.

Also, when you look at the funding situation for schools, for example, the Orlando Sentinel had a great story about, Brookshire Elementary in Winter Park.

Their grade dropped to a C. That was a surprise to a lot of parents and people in the community.

And one of the things the story discovered is that fewer kids are qualifying for that extra reading help.

And, you know that's purely a funding issue.

They don't have enough staff to do it.

So, so there are some concerns and, this is, this is all, a really worthwhile conversation to be having.

>>Yeah.

That funding question again.

I mean, the legislature had actually attempted to change the way, how those grades are given out by the state.

>>Yeah, that's right, thoug I believe you're referring to the score act here which, shifts, the percentage in which you qualified for an A to 90%.

Right.

So I guess making it more, equivalent to how the rest of us were, were judged and graded on getting A's.

>>Yeah.

At the moment, I think you can get 60 something percent.

>>Yeah there's a pretty wide threshold.

>>Yeah WFTV has been covering the story of a couple of schools like like Beth mentioned that that didn't fare as well in the most recent, assessments.

What are your colleagues been finding?

>>Yeah.

So here's the thing.

There were two school.

There were three schools actually, in the Orange County that got, letter F as a grade as a score, but two of them are actually working to adjust tha because those two schools were, school that have special education.

So one of them offers service to teen moms and to even take care of their children also as they go to school.

So they are trying to work on changing that letter letter for them as well.

And also, there's another school that offers special educatio for students with disabilities.

So they're actually in touch wit-- >>They can if they're trying to appeal those grades?

>>They're trying to change that.

Yeah.

So trying to fix that.

>>There are a lot of variables though, aren't there.

When it comes to education in Florida in recent years, I mean, a lot of the new state laws that we've talked about extensively, here on the program, a lot of thing for, for teachers to to navigate all the education losses after Covid.

It's a tough time in education.

>>Oh, it's a it's a really hard time for teachers out there.

Covid is still havin a lingering effect on kids especially in math and reading.

I think some of these tes scores are showing that, you know, their kid where their entire fifth grade and entry into middle school, you know, were lost.

That's a really critical time.

And, yeah, I mean, in addition to some of the changes we've seen that could probably be categorized, categorized more in the culture war area.

You know we've seen a lot of fights over what books should be banned and, and taken out of libraries.

We've seen a lot of fights about, you know, gender and how much that can be talke about in schools, things that, you know, really don't focu on core education policy at all.

>>All kinds of things to keep a eye on in the education space.

Be sure to catch my full, in-depth interview with Orange County School Superintendent Maria Vazquez on a special edition of Newsnight Conversations Friday evening August 8th at 8:30 here on WUCF.

Meanwhile, you can find a link to the state's data on school accountability to read for yourself alongside data from the federal government's National Assessment of Educational Progress.

It's all on our website wucf.org/newsnight.

Okay, finally tonight, former Congresswoman Stephanie Murph is making a political comeback, launching a bid for Orange County mayor in 2026.

The Winter Park Democrat became the first Vietnamese-American elected to Congress and served on the January 6th Select Committee.

The race for Orange County mayor is attracting a crowded field with big issues like growth, housing and public safety on the table.

I'm going to come to you first, on this one, Geovany what did Stephanie Murphy highlight as sort of a key prioritie when she made her announcement?

>>So, yeah, so she made reference to a slew of very interesting topics, but I actually like three of them.

Key three topic were that the ones that caught my attentio the most, I selected them here.

She mentioned three things.

One, she talked about traffic in, Orange County, which is something that we can all relate to because traffic is a little bit chaotic here.

She vowed to invest in more mass transportation, which is something that really we know, Central Florid in Orange County really lacks.

So we need some of that.

It was very interesting to see that she addressed that right away.

She talked about affordable housing.

She said that there is a lot of people who are moving out of Orange County in the hopes to be able to afford a home.

So she kind of wants she wants to address that.

And she is that she mentioned, working on rezoning.

She worked.

She said that she's going to try to fight regulations to improve the number of homes available, affordable homes available for the community.

And she also talked about, diversifying our economy.

She says she's not going to move away from tourism but she would like to diversify and have more, industries tha we could invest on as a county.

>>Yeah certainly there are a lot of hot button issues there in Murphy's district.

Includes Winter Park, of course, which which you cover Bet and I - and I'm wondering from, you know, your observations of her over, over the years, you know, what you make of her political experience, what she brings to that race.

>>Yeah.

I mean, she started out as this dynamo who, unseated John Mica in the seventh congressional.

>>Extremely surprising.

>>Yes.

And, has really been a champion for the moderate voice.

That's what I've seen out of her, in Washington.

And-- >>Yeah, she' one of those Blue Dog Democrats.

>>She was absolutely.

And really, was this was a kind of a spokesperson for that group.

And, and, her district was redrawn and she didn't run again.

And, I think though the issues she's seizing on are these issues that have absolutely resonate with voters, especially in that that district that, Winter Park makes up for the county.

And she'll have to see if that if that goes across the board.

But I think there's this last round of count commission elections showed that the zoning issues, the traffic, transportation, those are things on voters minds.

You can tell that by who won and how much they won by.

And it was the the candidates that were most loudly voicing for change in those areas including on how the tourist tax is distributed and, that a candidate who has been probably the loudest on that one in district five.

But I think that's going to be a huge test for her.

>>What about the other candidates, Joe Mario, who else is who's declared here was the current field look like?

>>Yeah you know, some familiar faces in there.

We have, Tiffany Moore Russell, the Orange County, clerk of court.

We have, Orange County commissioner of District Three, Mayra Uribe.

And we also have, Chris Messina, a self, self-described, tech enthusiast.

>>It' gonna be a pretty significant, election for, Orange Count and, of course, for the region as a whole.

Be sure to find us on social media meanwhile, we're at WUCF TV on Facebook and Instagram.

You'll also find us on X @NewsNightWUCF but that is al the time we have for this week.

My thanks to Geovany Dias, Beth Kasab and Joe Mario Pedersen.

Thank you so much for coming in guys.

We really appreciate your time today.

We'll see you next Friday night at 8:30 here on WUCF.

For all of us here at NewsNight, take care and have a great week.