Tallahassee, Fla — A few days into Florida’s Legislative Session, leaders from Northeast Florida have several issues they are looking to tackle.
Florida Rep. Angie Nixon (D-Jacksonville) has filed a “Working Families First” priority legislation and spoke with “Jacksonville’s Morning News” on her goal regarding these individual bills.
“The overall vision is to really work to improve the lives of working families here in our state to ensure, safe, secure affordable housing, to provide young children with quality education, to protect workers as well as to provide dental care for Medicaid recipients.”
Representative Nixon states that she is committed to prioritizing the needs and freedoms of Floridians by working to ensure families have access to dental care.
“If we have preventative measures provided, you know your routine visits and things like that, you can actually save a lot more money. The state could save a lot more money on the back end.”
Representative Nixon mentions that the HB 975 bill would help ensure the stability and consistency of benefits for Florida’s adult Medicaid enrollees, especially those with disabilities.
“If you have poor oral health that leads to other things, other horrible things. Yeah, heart disease. Just your body starts to breakdown. And so, it’s really important to ensure that our folks are getting their oral health needs addressed.”
The legislation also features bills focused on education.
“One of my bills proposes that those providers, those educators, those teachers who have children who are in early childcare facilities to be able to waive their tuition fees for those children,” Nixon said.
She also highlights the HB 1499 bill which protects individuals’ reproductive rights and prevents local governments from imposing regulations on their reproductive freedom.
The “Working Families First” package includes the following bills:
- HB 811 Education
- HB 959 Emergency Residential Property Insurance Assistance Funds
- HB 975 Coverage of Dental Services under the Medicaid Program
- HB 1497 Division of Labor Standards
- HB 1499 Reproductive Health Care
- HB 1501 Availability of Marijuana for Adult Use
- HB 1623 Early Education Workforce Support
Transcript
This is the WOKV spotlight on 104.5 WOKV.
6:22 on a windy and cool Thursday morning. It’s not going to be nearly as warm as it was yesterday. We’re tracking the possibility of rain, and it looks like Saturday may be your pick day for any stuff you want to get done outdoors. Including the Concours d’Elegance, the Amelia on Amelia Island and through Nassau county. But we have a number of other events. Monster Jam, for example, Saturday night at Everbank Stadium. So, a lot that is coming up and it’s Thursday so, we’ll spotlight the weekend as we do every Thursday. We’re just a couple of days into the state legislative session and there are hundreds upon hundreds, I think the last count that I saw was like 1400 separate bills, some of them being grouped together and whatnot. Everyone has their own priorities and Northeast Florida’s delegation obviously has a number of issues that they want to bring to bear and we’re going to be focusing on that here over the next several weeks, starting this hour, with Democratic representative Angie Nixon, who filed a working families first priority legislation. What’s the overall goal of these individual bills? We’ll dive into the specifics of it, but what’s your overall vision that you can see here?
Thank you for having me on. The overall vision is to really work to improve the lives of working families here in our state to ensure, you know, safe, secure, affordable housing, to provide young children with quality education to protect workers. As well as to provide dental care for Medicaid recipients who actually oftentimes are working because there’s negative connotation around that and just really putting the needs and freedoms of Floridians first.
Is dental care not provided under Medicaid?
Only emergency dental care is provided under Medicaid right now, and there’s like a strong emphasis for, like dentures and things like that. If we have these preventative measures provided, you know your routine visits and things like that, you can actually save a lot more money. The state could save a lot more money on the back end.
The working families first package starts, it seems, with education. Dive a little bit deeper into what specifically you want to see happen as a result of education, and in that bill.
Yeah, for sure. So, I am a mother of five. I have kids in high school. Last year, two years ago actually, I had them in high school, middle school, elementary and you know, daycare. Right now it’s just high school and elementary school, but I do still have a child in a daycare facility. Not daycare facility, early childhood education facility and I know that the cost is super, super high. But also one of those reasons is as well as it’s just really hard to retain educators, early childhood educators. And so, one of my bills proposes that those providers, those educators, those teachers who have children who are in early child care facilities to be able to waive their tuition fees for those children. It is so costly, I pay over $1000 a month and we have a workforce issue in early childhood education and so that would definitely tackle, help tackle that issue. Another bill would actually help you know, restore some of the freedoms in education. And yeah, those are my main components as it relates to education.
Representative Nixon, another one of the Bills that are included in this working families first legislation, is the coverage of dental services under the Medicaid program, which would revise dental services that are currently paid by the AHCA. As an optional Medicaid service, why is this bill needed, in your opinion?
Yeah, for sure and, you know, I stated earlier, but it’s needed. It’ll help solidify the set of benefits that Florida’s adult Medicaid enrollees would have, especially those with disabilities. It includes, as I stated earlier, you know some of your routine visits, your root canals, your crowns, fillings, diagnostic care. And it just saves money. It saves the state of Florida money and you know, if you have poor oral health that leads to other things.
Heart disease?
Other horrible things. Yeah, heart disease. Just your body starts to breakdown, right? And so, it’s really important to ensure that our folks are getting their oral health needs addressed.
That’s something that we’ve talked about frequently because a lot of people don’t know the correlation between dental health and your overall health. One of the more controversial bills is HB 1499. Tell us a little bit about that.
Yeah, you know. It would basically provide that individuals have, you know, specified reproductive rights, prohibiting local governments from regulating individuals with reproductive freedom, particularly around, you know, like you’re in vitro fertilization and things like. I just wanna make sure that that type of stuff is not attacked as we, as the state. You know, attacks a woman’s right to choose, and so that. That’s my thought as it relates to that.
Definitely a passionate subject for you and for many in our listening audience. Representative Angie Nixon, thank you so much for being our guest. Look forward to talking with you again very soon.
Thank you for having me.
WOKV news time 6:28.
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