The sixty-day Florida 2021 Legislative Session convened today, following five weeks of interim committee hearings held in January and February, with each chamber positioning its priorities and responses to the issues raised by COVID-19.
COVID Liability for Business Entities: Both chambers came out of the gate early on the biggest issue they plan to address this session, the COVID-19 liability bill. The bills (SB72/HB7) are very similar in providing several COVID-19-related liability protections for businesses, educational institutions, government entities, religious organizations, and other entities. Under the bills, a covered entity that makes a good faith effort to substantially comply with applicable COVID-19 guidance is immune from civil liability from a COVID-19-related civil action. The House bill has passed all of its committees of reference and will be heard on the House floor on March 4; meanwhile, the Senate bill has passed the first of its three committees and will be heard in its second committee of reference, Commerce, this afternoon.
COVID Liability for Health Care Providers: The House and Senate also have bills (SB74/HB7005) to provide heightened COVID liability protections to health care entities for negligence claims by patients and residents arising under existing laws governing medical malpractice and long-term care facility litigation related to:
- Contracting COVID-19;
- Injury due to delay or omission in scheduling surgery or an act or omission in providing care for a medical condition due to a lack of resources caused by COVID-19;
- Novel or experimental COVID-19 treatment given to a COVID-19 patient; or
- Treatment of a COVID-19 patient whose injuries were related to an exacerbation of pre-existing conditions by COVID-19.
HB7005 is on the House Pandemics & Public Emergencies Committee today while SB74 is on the Senate Health Policy Committee agenda on March 3.
Budget: Like most other states, the Florida legislature must address the estimated nearly $3 billion dollar budget shortfall. Despite this shortfall, the Governor rolled out his budget at the end of January at a record level of $96.6 billion. His proposal would be $4.3 billion more than the current year’s budget of which DeSantis identified $2.6 billion of the increase being related to Covid-19 response or impacts of the pandemic.
Insurance: There are a number of insurance related priorities on the table.
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Auto: In the auto insurance space, leadership in both chambers is advocating changes to the vehicle no-fault law known as PIP and replace it with bodily injury coverage at higher lower limits.
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Property: For property insurance there will be another fight between the industry and the trial bar on a number of changes that would attempt to slow the increase of premiums and stop the increase of property owners not being able to get affordable and/or available insurance coverage for their homes and being forced into state-backed Citizens property insurance. Three big issues at stake are: 1) shortening the statutory deadline for claims submission from three years to two years; 2) limiting reimbursement for roof claims to actual cash value (“ACV”); and 3) restricting the use of the contingency fee multiplier to rare and unusual cases.
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Health: Big Pharma, doctors and independent pharmacists have filed a slew of bills primarily aimed at forcing insurers to pay more for their services. Issues include PBM reforms, prior authorization, step therapy, prompt pay, mandated benefits, cap-the-copay, and retroactive claim denial.
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Guaranty Funds: FLAHIGA is advocating for a bill that conforms to the most recent NAIC guaranty fund model act.
Telehealth: During the Pandemic, telehealth became a bright light for patients. There are a variety of telehealth measures on the table, including striking the prohibition on audio-only technology, permitting second opinions across state lines, relaxing the ban on prescribing controlled substances, permitting prescription of medical marijuana, and payment parity.
Big Tech: The Governor and House Speaker Sprowls have unveiled several initiatives taking aim at big tech, including social media companies and cloud servers utilized by state agencies. There is a consumer data privacy bill, modeled after the California Consumer Privacy Act, that seeks to give consumers more control over the personal information that businesses collect about them. The business community is already raising questions of its impact on Florida businesses.
Other big issues that will be receiving attention this session will be legislative efforts to continue to boost school choice, which has been a priority of Republican leadership in recent years. Governor DeSantis is pursuing a third consecutive year of environmental funding of at least $625 million in addition to a new resiliency program that would seek over $1 billion in funding over the next four years. There is also a controversial public protest bill that would enhance penalties associated with violent crowd protests and creates new crimes relating to property damage resulting from protests.
The Meenan team will bring you weekly updates on these key topics until Session adjourns on April 30.
