BY Jim Saunders, The News Service of Florida
TALLAHASSEE — Florida lawmakers will start the annual 60-day legislative session on Jan. 9, with Gov. Ron DeSantis giving his State of the State address. Here are 10 issues to watch during the session:
— ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: As access to artificial intelligence continues to expand, lawmakers are expected to consider issues such as the use of the technology in political advertising. Bills would require disclaimers on political ads that include AI-generated content depicting people taking actions that did not really occur.
— BUDGET: Gov. Ron DeSantis has proposed a $114.4 billion budget for the 2024-2025 fiscal year, which will start July 1. DeSantis’ proposal is a starting point as lawmakers negotiate a final spending plan. Among other things, DeSantis’ proposal includes money to increase teacher salaries, continue Everglades restoration efforts and upgrade correctional facilities.
— HEALTH CARE: Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, has made a priority of passing two bills aimed at improving access to health care and spurring more health-care innovation. The wide-ranging proposals include expanding residency programs to try to keep doctors in the state and taking steps to divert patients from emergency rooms.
— HURRICANES: After Hurricane Idalia hit North Florida, lawmakers during a November special session took a series of steps to help communities that sustained damage. But lawmakers likely will continue to look at issues related to Idalia and 2022’s Hurricane Ian, including effects on local governments and the agriculture industry.
— INSURANCE: Lawmakers during the past two years have passed major legislation to try to shore up the troubled property-insurance industry. But they face pressure from homeowners who continue to see large rate increases or can’t find coverage. A series of bills could effectively allow more people to get coverage through the state’s Citizens Property Insurance Corp.
— LABOR: Following the lead of other states, the House has started moving forward with a proposal that would loosen regulations about the numbers of hours that 16-year-old and 17-year-old youths can work. The proposal would roll back parts of a decades-old child labor law and prevent local governments from imposing restrictions.
— PUBLIC SCHOOLS: In another priority of Passidomo, the Senate could move quickly during the session to pass proposals about “deregulation” of public schools. Three bills deal with what Passidomo described as cutting “red tape” on issues such as testing and accountability, financial requirements and personnel decisions.
— SOCIAL MEDIA: Saying recently that social media is having a “devastating effect on kids,” House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, is expected to seek to place limits on children’s access to social-media sites. Renner indicated one possibility could be to require age verification in areas such as pornography. A Senate bill includes age-verification requirements.
— TAXES: Tied to his budget proposal, DeSantis has called for $1.1 billion in tax breaks, including holding six sales-tax “holidays” on such things as back-to-school items. The plan also would provide $409 million to give a one-year exemption on certain taxes, fees and assessments on property-insurance policies.
— UNIVERSITY AND COLLEGE STUDENTS: House and Senate Republicans have filed bills that could financially penalize state university and college students who back “foreign terrorist” organizations, such as Hamas. For example, the bills call for such students to be required to pay out-of-state tuition rates, which are higher than in-state rates.
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DSP disproved his/her gynocologist fleeing statement by citing very miniscule examples. More important would be statung the number of licensed gynacologists, say, in Florida, yearly, over the past 40 years.
Hamas sympathisers promoting extermination of Jews is akin to KKK calling for the extermination of Blacks and Jews in the 1900’s. Their violent protests are the same seen by KKK actions. Remove Hamas supporters calling for extermination from schools and the US if they are foreign students!
At Deep State.
Alright, that’s 3 examples. Idaho had 12 in the article you posted that were on the move.
So this tells me a few gynecologists/doctors may have concerns
enough to move their entire families to a different state. Still doesn’t address hard numbers.
Sounds like a gross exaggeration to use the claim ‘droves’ when I read from the opinion pieces you provided. Let’s just ASSUME a high number of 3%. I still can’t see that doing anything but providing opportunities to doctors who move to that state. While I get that it’s fun to pretend every gynecologist is in the abortion business, we both know that isn’t true. Our states already provide contraceptives for free and even if they are not there’s a variety of things that won’t break the bank if you are in a situation such as the morning after pill.
The problem is that some people use abortion as birth control at states expense over and over and it should be up to the states to determine how that should work. I, for one, am glad it’s not truly up to me. I see BOTH sides of this from the moral AND health standpoint.
@Concerned Citizen: “You got ‘any’ sort of true data on that?”
Sure! This site doesn’t like publishing links, so pick any sentence below, google it, and you’ll get the source page.
“One by one, doctors who handle high-risk pregnancies are disappearing from Idaho — part of a wave of obstetricians fleeing restrictive abortion laws and a hostile state legislature. Dr. Caitlin Gustafson, a family doctor who also delivers babies in the tiny mountain town of McCall, is among those left behind, facing a lonely and uncertain future.”
“When caring for patients with pregnancy complications, Dr. Gustafson seeks counsel from maternal-fetal medicine specialists in Boise, the state capital two hours away. But two of the experts she relied on as backup have packed up their young families and moved away, one to Minnesota and the other to Colorado.
All told, more than a dozen labor and delivery doctors — including five of Idaho’s nine longtime maternal-fetal experts — will have either left or retired by the end of this year. Dr. Gustafson says the departures have made a bad situation worse, depriving both patients and doctors of moral support and medical advice.”
“Idaho’s obstetrics exodus is not happening in isolation. Across the country, in red states like Texas, Oklahoma and Tennessee, obstetricians — including highly skilled doctors who specialize in handling complex and risky pregnancies — are leaving their practices. Some newly minted doctors are avoiding states like Idaho.”
Or you can try any of these sentences about obstetricians leaving Texas:
“As someone who specialized in complex pregnancies, Shamshirsaz frequently saw reminders of just how far-reaching the abortion ban was — and how dramatically it compromised his ability to provide needed medical care. One day, he recalls, he treated a woman who was pregnant and excited to welcome twins. But one fetus began suffering complications, and the other’s amniotic sac ruptured. There was no way she would give birth to a live baby.
But at 15 weeks, she was too far in her pregnancy to have an abortion unless her life was clearly in danger. Medically, Shamshirsaz knew what the right course of action was, but legally, there was nothing he could do. He sent her home, telling her to return if she developed a fever or chills.
When a few days later, the woman came back, she was in severe danger. She had developed septic shock, a condition that involves extremely low blood pressure, mental confusion and, in some cases, organ failure and death. They cared for her in the intensive care unit for two weeks. Shamshirsaz said the infection was so severe that the patient’s kidneys suffered permanent damage. She would require an organ transplant within a year or so to stay alive.
All of this, he knew, could have been avoided if the patient had been able to get an abortion when she came in the first time. That realization was too much for Shamshirsaz.
In June 2022, just weeks before the Supreme Court overruled Roe, Shamshirsaz left Houston, taking a hospital-based job in Boston. Now, he said, he’s not sure he will ever be able to go back.
“I do want to do the best for my patients, and I need to work in an environment where I can provide patients with at least the standard of care,” he said. ”
There are also several studies you can find if you’d like to regarding residency and placement with regard to the states laws in terms of abortion. They tell the same tale as above.
Finally you can google ‘Deborah Dorbert’ and read about a Florida woman who tragically was pregnant with a baby without functioning kidneys. She was forced to give birth because the abnormality was undetectable well past 15 weeks or pregnancy. Her doctors had no choice but to deny her an abortion lest they find themselves criminally liable. It just isn’t an environment doctors want to operate in.
Happy reading!
DSP’s silence is deafening
on the Biden failures…
From Deep State Provocateur:
You posted – They better be worried about a shortage of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, who are fleeing red states with restrictive abortion laws in droves.
You got ‘any’ sort of true data on that? I see loads of data of people fleeing Blue states but
no data on people fleeing Red states (especially in ‘droves’). There has been no real change in who can or can’t get abortions from ALL the states since the new laws literally did NOTHING but return the power to the States, so I find it hard to believe a gynecologist would uproot their life just to smack back at an empty law. You DO know that Doctors and Gynecologists do more than provide abortions, right? Abortions aren’t the WHOLE of Womens Care, unless we are all mistaken on how many abortions women are getting per year on the average.
When it comes to AI, why not just BAN any Ad Content depicting people taking actions that did not really occur? Ban Spreading LIES about their Opponent with which a Lie would be something they can not prove with FACTS and Evidence.
To punish State University and College Students who back “Foreign Terrorist” Organizations, such as Hamas I say kick them out and Ban them from attending/Enrolling in any Florida State Schools, strip them of their Grades and GPA and do not Refund any Money’s.
> Bills would require disclaimers on political ads that include AI-generated content depicting people taking actions that did not really occur.
Not a bad idea in theory, but no way they could ever actually do anything about it.
> The wide-ranging proposals include expanding residency programs to try to keep doctors in the state and taking steps to divert patients from emergency rooms
They better be worried about a shortage of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, who are fleeing red states with restrictive abortion laws in droves.
> A series of bills could effectively allow more people to get coverage through the state’s Citizens Property Insurance Corp.
Not a great solution considering the state could never actually pay off the damages of a large storm, but better than anything else they could do from a legislative standpoint.
> The proposal would roll back parts of a decades-old child labor law and prevent local governments from imposing restrictions.
So glad our legislature is drafting bills to roll back the draconian child labor laws we have been struggling under for the past few decades. My only concern is that they should be doing the same thing for all children, not just those over 16. I especially appreciate the approach of outlawing local municipalities from having their own laws! That’s what small government truly looks like!
> Saying recently that social media is having a “devastating effect on kids,” House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, is expected to seek to place limits on children’s access to social-media sites.
How? I mean, he isn’t wrong in that social media bad for kids (and everyone else), but I struggle to see a mechanism to actually address it legislatively.
> House and Senate Republicans have filed bills that could financially penalize state university and college students who back “foreign terrorist” organizations, such as Hamas.
The thought police are Republicans once again. What a surprise.
> One of my favoriate tax breaks is the finger poke to the eye of the impotant Biden administration on gas stoves.
This is amazing, probably one of my favoriate impotant posts of yours yet! How many gas stoves have you bought? Like 10? That would really stick it to Biden!
> Cut Property Taxes
Earth to PRR: This is an article about state level legislation, not local legislation. So close!
Cut Property Taxes
Putting people on insurance welfare is NOT an answer to the problem. If they don;t do something that brings down my premium, they are gonna have a problem next go round. This is the legislature’s fault, they can fix it if they are so inclined.
One of my favoriate tax breaks is the finger poke to the eye of the impotant Biden administration on gas stoves.