State lawmakers were scrambling to find $1.3 billion to plug a sudden budget deficit after a top Medicaid chief said Tuesday that Florida will lose federal money to help hospitals treat poor and uninsured patients. Eliot Fishman, director of the Children and Adults Health Programs Group in the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, told attendees at an Orlando health care conference that the federal government won't extend Florida's "Low Income Pool" program, or LIP, that reimburses hospitals that treat large numbers of poor and uninsured patients, according to news media reports.
