News Service of Florida has: Five Questions for Jason Brodeur

By MARGIE MENZEL
THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, August 12, 2015..........As chairman of the House Health & Human Services Committee, Sanford Republican Jason Brodeur has been in the middle of contentious debates this year about Florida's health-care system. He also found himself embroiled in a fight about gay adoption.

Brodeur was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2010. Gov. Rick Scott appointed him to the Judicial Nominating Commission for the 18th Circuit and the state Medicaid Pharmaceutical and Therapeutics Committee. Brodeur is president of the Seminole County Regional Chamber of Commerce and is engaged to marry Department of Juvenile Justice Secretary Christy Daly in December.

The News Service of Florida has five questions for Jason Brodeur:

Q: A 2011 law you sponsored as a freshman, the so-called "Docs vs. Glocks" law restricting doctors from asking patients about guns, was upheld by a federal appeals court last month. What did you learn from the process of sponsoring that bill?

BRODEUR: I started running for office because I was a big fan of America, and thought, "What a better way to show how much I love America than enforcing constitutional principles?" And what I learned very quickly was how fast a message can spiral out of control if you're not actively engaged in trying to combat it, trying to correct it.

I have traditionally had very, very tough relationships with the media. And a lot of it, I think, started at that time because I wasn't as engaged as I should have been with explaining what was in it, what the rationale was. I saw editorials railing against something that wasn't in the bill. And so, when you have folks challenge it, and people go, "How could that possibly be upheld?," it's because they're basing that idea on the premise of what they thought was in the bill, not what was actually in the bill.

And so that taught me that as we handle controversial issues, as we handle complicated or technical issues, it's important to be very transparent about what's exactly in it and why, and do that as much as possible. Because I think it's very easy to let the narrative get spun out of control, and once you lose that, it's very tough to recover from.

(We just watched you do a press gaggle, and it seemed you had it under control.) I don't know that I ever get comfortable with the gaggles. Just as a spectacle, they're a bit of something. But I think once you get comfortable with the notion that these are the principles by which I am running this bill or this position, I don't have anything to hide or be ashamed of.

And if there is a technical question, take the time to answer it. There are legitimate questions out there in the public square that people want to have answers to, and it's okay to take the time and step back, and not everyone has had exposure to the same information that we have. So repeat that, and make sure that everyone is grounded on the same level. And I think once that happens, it's now much easier for me to respond to those kinds of things than it was as a freshman. When you run for office, there's no prerequisite other than that you're a citizen in your district for 12 months and you're 21 years old. So you don't get school on what it's like if you file a bill that's going to be politically hot --- and then 25 reporters show up at your office. There's no school for that other than just having gone through it. And I think now it's a lot easier for me to handle that, because I did have that first-year experience of just what I would say is --- really, I was just unprepared for that kind of attention. Now, when I get it, it's something that I've had time to reflect on and say, "Well, what would I have done differently?"

Q: As chairman of the House Health & Human Services Committee, you took issue with the Senate's plan to use federal dollars to extend coverage to more uninsured Floridians. What should the Legislature be doing instead?

BRODEUR: It really is the question of the day, not only for Florida, but for every state. Certainly the principle by which we all operate is that we want to make sure that we have the appropriate care available for all of our citizens, all of our visitors for a state like Florida --- but we want to do so in a way that's affordable.

In understanding government, there are a couple of different principles. Chief among them is: In order for government to give something to somebody, it must first take something away from somebody else. And the way we do it is we take a tiny bit away from a lot of people so that we can give a lot to one. If we start giving a lot to a lot of people, you have nobody left to pay the bills. And eventually, that's going to come due.

The (Senate) plan had 82 percent of its recipients as able-bodied, childless adults. That, I think, makes the argument just of government principle of "If they're getting benefits, who's left to pay the bills?" That then indicts our current system, which says that as an able-bodied, childless adult, why don't you have access to health insurance or to health care? Which begs the larger question, which is, "Why is there no consumer market in health care?" and it's because we have this ever-growing employer- and government-payer model. If you don't have insurance from your employer, or you don't have insurance from the government, you probably don't have much access to insurance.

Now, there are private plans for sale, but they're prohibitively expensive because the federal tax code does not let you use pre-tax dollars to pay for them. So for the Legislature, the question is, "Why don't we have a consumer market?" We wouldn't need to be giving government insurance to all these people, particularly childless, able-bodied adults, if there was actually a consumer market to sell it in. Everybody out there has a cell phone they pay $125 a month for. Everyone! What if we had a product that somebody could buy for $125 a month that gave them access to these kinds of things? I think it's possible. I just think we as the Legislature need to do all we can to help bring back or re-establish some consumer market in health care.

Q: The House, with you leading the charge, wants to eliminate certificates of need for hospitals, loosen regulations on ambulatory surgical centers and change health insurance for state employees. Those are all contentious issues --- why take them on?

BRODEUR: I think because this is the tipping point for this time in the Legislature. If you're lucky, you get to work on some pretty big things when you have the opportunity to serve. And certainly this seems to be the focus of conversations all over America --- '"What do we do?" --- and now, I think, it's come to a point where if we continue down the path that we're on, it will bankrupt us as a state. This issue will literally jeopardize our state sovereignty. If we link up with the federal government to the degree to which we have been offered, it will eat up such a proportion of our budget that we will no longer be left as a sovereign state to make decisions for ourselves. It will, quite literally, jeopardize our ability to fund schools, or roads, or anything else the state participates in. All of our money, because of the way it's set up, has to go to the federal programs first, and then all of our money's gone.

So the Legislature will come back up here, and we'll publish some new license plates and rename some wildflowers, and then we'll go home. Because there will be no other opportunity. If we don't fix this issue, it will break our state.

Q: Talk about the reasoning behind your "conscience protection" bill for private adoption agencies that are morally opposed to placing children with same-sex couples. Can we expect to see that bill again in 2016?

BRODEUR: I think what's important to know is that when we talk about adopting children in the state of Florida, when we look at our current numbers, we still have over 600 children in Florida who are in state care that do not have an identified family member with which they could go or a foster family that may be able to take them in permanently. So I would like to make sure there are as many outlets for permanent placement for a forever home as possible.

In other states, we have seen some individuals sue some adoption agencies out of existence. And so that legislation was an attempt to protect as many as we can. We have over 70 adoption agencies in the state of Florida. Some are through our CBCs, our community-based care organizations. Some are private, religious-based organizations. The rationale for filing it was, let's keep all of them open, as many as possible, and eliminate the ability for one group to sue another out of existence, because at the end of the day, the goal is to get children placed in forever homes. So let's keep as many of those outlets open as possible.

I'm not sure that we'll see it again this year. It's possible that we will. I think we're seeing conversations elevated about the protections of religious freedom. It was a principle upon which this country is based, and we're seeing that eroded very slowly in different pockets of the country. And I think Florida would like to protect itself against the erosion of that religious freedom.

Q: How has being adopted affected you as a lawmaker?

BRODEUR: I would say it doesn't affect much of the work. And that's what my hope is for all of the adoption work that I've done, that once a child achieves a forever home, they're able to achieve everything else --- or at least have a platform for the pursuit of whatever they would like.

For me, whenever I see the bills that affect children like this, I always tend to think, "Well, this could have been me." And so how is it that I can give every child the best chance to pursue whatever they want? They don't have to be legislators, they don't have to work in health care, they don't have to do anything that I have done. But I would like to give them the opportunity to pursue whatever they want to pursue. And so a lot of times, when we see these adoption bills, we see these child-care bills for children who are in state care, children that don't have forever homes, I always wonder, "How close was I to being that kid?" --- and try and do everything I can to give them the opportunity to have the chances I have.