The Florida Roundup - Senate's plan to expand health care access, free speech on campuses and Florida braces for stormy weather

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

This week on The Florida Roundup, we spoke with Florida Senate President Kathleen Passidomo about her top priorities for the upcoming legislative session including her healthcare proposal (01:34 & 19:53). We also talked about how the plan aims to expand healthcare access with Politico reporter Arek Sarkissian (13:41). Then, we talked about how the issue of free speech is playing out on Florida campuses, with State University System Chancellor Ray Rodrigues (31:08). Later, FPREN meteorologist Megan Borowski joined us for an update on a developing storm (38:14) and we shared two stories at the intersection of water and health (42:56).

This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Thanks for being along with us this week. Kathleen Pasadena wants to help you see a doctor. She has a plan she thinks will expand access to medical care. If fully implemented, it would cost just shy of $1 billion. Now, Florida has more people who get their health insurance through Obamacare than any other state. About 2.5 million people, one out of every nine, don't have any health insurance at all. Almost 5 million people rely on Medicare, and just over 5 million receive Medicaid. Healthcare spending is the single largest slice of state spending. It is an enormous expense for many, and spending

on health care has been growing faster than the overall economy for years. So how does health care spending affect your budget? How easy is it for you to get in to see a doctor? What challenges have you encountered when trying to seek medical attention? Email us now radio at the Florida Roundup dot, radio at thefloridaroundup.org, radio at thefloridaroundup.org, or call 305-995-1800, 305-995-1800. Your emails and phone calls coming up in a few minutes. Health care is just one of Kathleen Pasadena's top priorities for the Florida legislative session that begins in early January, and she has a platform to push her policies. Pasadena is the president of the Florida Senate, a Republican from Naples. She calls her plan Live Healthy. President Pasadena, thanks for your time and

welcome to Florida Public Radio. Let's dig into your Live Healthy package of proposals. Among the efforts is to require hospitals to help patients who. Among the efforts is to require hospitals to help patients who come into the emergency room to get care when it's not an emergency, but go to someplace other than an emergency room. How do you envision this working? I'm very excited about our Live Healthy series of proposals. That one piece is very important to me

because really the most expensive real estate in the state of Florida is the emergency room. And there are many people who, for a lot of reasons, do not have primary care doctors, or even if they do, if you get sick in the middle of the night, wake up with an earache or a head cold or something that you feel uncomfortable about, what do you do? You have nowhere to go. You go to the emergency room. And the way it is now, you're in there with people that may have had heart attacks or other serious problems. You may have to wait hours. Why? If there's a place where you can go that is co-located or adjacent to or across the street from the hospital's emergency room,

wouldn't it make more sense? You'd be seen sooner and you'll get efficient and effective service, and you won't take up space in the emergency room. Now, the other thing that's important about it is what we envision is to help create a medical home for these patients who don't have one. If you don't have a primary care doctor, you're new in town maybe, that kind of thing. What do you mean by a medical home? What does that mean? So you're seeing, they maybe prescribe something, they examine you, they determine you may need further care or not. They take information, they follow up. What we're hoping is that they would follow up with them and make sure they're taking their medication, create a relationship so that, which you cannot have a relationship with emergency room doctors because they're too busy. So it sounds like it's something

a little bit different than the current urgent care system that has blossomed in Florida as private insurance companies have tried to move non-emergency cases out of the ER or ED into those urgent care facilities. And a lot of the medical centers have created urgent care businesses. Well, and honestly, that could be a component. It does, you know, I'm not creating the facility. I'm just creating the opportunity for patients to go somewhere to be seen when they do not need to go into the emergency room itself. The problem with urgent care centers now, unfortunately, is that they're open from, you know, eight to five. now, unfortunately, is that they're open from, you know, eight to five. And when, you know,

particularly with kids, when do kids, my kids, whenever they got sick, they got sick in the middle of the night. Yeah, they never got the flu at noon, right? That's right. And people who work, you know, they struggle through the day because I got to get my work done. Then they go home and they get sicker and sicker. And it's in the middle of the night that you get sick. And where do you go? To the emergency room. So what's the state role in either incentivizing or encouraging this kind of development? Well, that's part of the whole healthy package. We fund hospitals. We are going to provide some additional funding for the federally qualified health care centers. Also, again, part of the Live Healthy package, we're working on workforce training, workforce development. So it's not just one single answer. It's just part of everything.

It's the state's role to make sure our citizens get quality, affordable health care. One other another piece of that live healthy plan is to increase the income limits that allow low income Floridians to use community based clinics. Family of four making ninety thousand dollars a year would be able to use these clinics free of charge under your proposal as it sits in front of the Senate. Why take this route instead of other types of expansions, for instance, Medicaid? So here's the problem with Medicaid expansion. Our doctors today don't accept Medicaid. Many don't accept Medicaid. I hear all the time of physicians who are not accepting Medicaid. So why expand a system that the providers are not using? What we're doing here is thinking creatively. There are different ways to skin the cat, if you will. And we have the healthcare clinic, the FQHCs.

We have many of them throughout our state. We have many health clinics throughout our state. Why not utilize those facilities that currently exist instead of starting a whole system? And part of the Live Healthy package is to help those facilities provide care. So, you know, as part of our workforce training program, for example, we are looking on some loan reimbursement programs for doctors and nurses and the like. And it's not just saying, we're going to give you your money back. What we're going to say is, we will reimburse you if you agree to volunteer your time, part of your time at these clinics. We will reimburse you if you volunteer at health fairs. So it's a give back to the community for the community that's

giving to you. Could you offer those same kind of loan incentives to caregivers that ultimately open up a practice and accept Medicaid? Well, sure. Absolutely. Our whole goal is to get as many health care providers from technicians to brain surgeons and everything in between in our state. Because the premise of this bill is right now, today in Florida, there are not enough healthcare personnel to take care of the needs of our citizens today. I don't know whether the last time you wanted to have elective surgery, did you go in and they told you, sure, we'll do it, but you got to wait eight months. That's not the way we want to provide care in our state. So we have such a diverse package of, I think, creative ways of attracting and maintaining health care personnel across the board. One of the other efforts in this package is to get the federal okay to have Medicaid patients get hospital care at home,

addressing that supply side, as you talked about. Some Florida hospitals have already been approved and offer this service. Why is state action needed here? Well, I think part of it is putting together the program, and that's part of our technology and innovation program. I talked, for example, Tampa General has a very robust plan of healthcare at home. And it's one of those that has this program already in place. And they have invested their dollars in putting together that program. But there are many smaller facilities, hospitals that our rural communities that could never in a million years afford that technology. But we need people who live in our rural communities

to be able to get a service. So the role of the state is to help some of those rural communities and some of the smaller facilities to be able to afford to put in the technology that they will need to provide those services. You have pledged as part of this overall package legislation expanding health care price transparency. How are you going to go about doing that? Well, I think that that would be part of the legislation. And that's a separate piece of legislation. And it's very important to the speaker. It's very important to him.

It's very important to me. And we want our constituents, our patients, to know what they're going to be paying for health care services. And we want them to be able to pick and choose the best place to provide the services and the care that they need, knowing what it's going to cost. How are you going to go about incentivizing the providers to provide that kind of transparency to a health care consumer? Well, legislation will help in that regard. Legislation will help in that regard. You know, most of these providers are accepting dollars from us and from our taxpayers. And so I think they should welcome the opportunity to show exactly what you're going to get for the taxpayer investment. The health care providers oftentimes say the price that they've negotiated with a private insurance company like

Florida Blue or Humana or Cigna is a trade secret. Do you expect or anticipate trying to address that defense of opacity in healthcare pricing? Well, that's the way our committee structure works. We put out the idea, and then as the bills will go through the committee structure, works. We put out the idea, and then as the bills will go through the committee structure, those individuals and companies that have issues with it will make suggestions. Discussions will be had. Changes may or may not be made. And then we hopefully get to the floor with a product that we're all proud of. Let me ask you one more health-related question. You supported the six-week abortion ban bill. You had supported a 12-week ban with exceptions for rape and incest. Do you have any plans to revisit the abortion issue this

legislative session? I personally do not. You know, obviously any senator or house member can file a bill. I, you know, I was very comfortable if we could have passed a 12-week ban with the rape and incest and human trafficking exception. Unfortunately, that was not the bill that was filed. For me, the most important part of the whole debate is the legislation that we had passed in the past did not have the exception. That was the most important thing for me. Do you anticipate yourself advocating for a bill that provides that exception? Well, in this session, I focused on the Live Healthy and our deregulation bill of our public school system regulations. If a senator files a bill that is in line with my thoughts, you know, I'm certainly sure that it would be heard.

Florida Senate President Kathleen Pasadena, they're making a commitment to hear an abortion bill if it aligns with her desires to provide exceptions for rape, incest and human trafficking, but says she won't be the one sponsoring it this upcoming legislative session. Now, you heard her mention their public school education and deregulation. We will have more from the Senate president on that, plus home insurance, social media regulation, all coming up in just a few minutes. But first, how easy is it for you to see your doctor, to get into a doctor, to have a primary care physician? What challenges have you encountered in Florida seeking medical attention? Radio at thefloridaroundup.org is our email. Radio at thefloridaroundup.org or 305-995-1800. 305-995-1800. Eric Sarkeesian is with us now, policy reporter for Politico in Tallahassee. Eric,

how does the Senate president's plan help patients get access to the care that's there? Sure. By the way, thanks for having me on. Of course. As usual, I always love being on Roundup. The way that this is supposed to benefit patients is that it's going to make more, number one, it's going to make more number one it's going to make more medical professionals available through training because there's a lot of money in there it's a 873 dollar uh package and there's a lot of money in there for opportunities for people to go into various specialties which are which is one area where the state is lacking you're talking about like the the person who runs the cat scan machine. And these are lucrative careers, nursing, stuff like that, to fill those gaps. That's one avenue.

It also provides them with incentives for folks living in rural areas that these newly minted medical professionals will get a little tuition relief if they work in some of these clinics that serve the public for free or some of these clinics that work in rural areas. that serve the public for free or some of these clinics that work in rural areas. So it's going to try and bring in more health care professionals, which the state badly needs. So that's that's the biggest win. Some have called this a workforce plan as much as it is a health care plan. The timeline to build that kind of workforce, though, isn't going to be six weeks or six months, though, is it?

Yeah, that's that's the tricky part about all this. And if you know, if you've been following health care news, I think since I've started reporting news, I've heard about the nursing shortage, you know, 20 years ago. Well before the pandemic. It's always been there. And this is another effort to not only bring in nurses, but other parts of the medical industry that are needed. I know of some facilities that will go through with diagnosing miscarriages without even doing an ultrasound. That's just because there's not enough time with the ultrasounds that one facility might have. So those are real issues out there that this bill could prevent, but you're right. It's not a quick fix at all. And I think the point is that I don't know if there's any... I don't think anyone's figured out how to build that mousetrap yet.

It's how to get something quickly. How are the legislators in this plan weighing this type of strategy going after kind of the supply of medical care vis-a-vis the workforce versus a Medicaid expansion in Florida, which of course Florida is the largest state that hasn't expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Right. At this point, in terms of expanding Medicaid, the one point that the Senate president keeps bringing up and also one of her top health care chairs are saying is that there's not enough medical personnel to go around in the first place if they were to expand Medicaid. It does.

Pasadena said that the bill does go as far as even expanding, you know, expanding opportunities and in these rural clinics, you know, the incentives were to get more medical professionals to work there. And there's also more funding for the free care. But it does ultimately just stop, stop short of that. But again, she keeps bringing up the point that there's just not even if we did expand Medicaid, we're talking about, I don't know how many more, you know, three million more Medicaid recipients. You know, do we have enough doctors? And she also brings up another point is a lot of these doctors don't know how many more, you know, 3 million more Medicaid recipients, you know, do we have enough doctors? And she also brings up another point is a lot of these doctors don't want to take Medicaid. Yeah, this bill actually, she gives that this bill actually gives them incentives to put in more Medicaid slots. I'm, I'll be candid with you on the on the my dad was a was a neurosurgeon for 30 years

in Detroit. And I remember him he took he took a lot of Medicaid patients. And he said it was it was a really rough going for 30 years in Detroit. And I remember him, he took a lot of Medicaid patients and he said it was a really rough going. He had to take out a business loan at the local bank in order to get by. That's just one story. Things have evolved since then with Medicaid. I hope our friends at ACA know that. I know that too. But I'm just saying, it's still difficult to deal with Medicaid. And I think this bill offers some incentives there too. Yeah. ACA is the state agency around healthcare here in Florida. Let me ask you about the transparency, price transparency efforts that the Senate president has talked about vaguely. No specific details around that. Phoebe sent us an email saying the cost of medical care

is a big impediment for people. I have medical insurance, she writes. When I get a bill for hospital care, it shows the original cost of, let's say, $100,000, then shows the insurance adjustment to deduct some amount of money. Phoebe says, why can't the hospital just cost everybody that amount of money? What is actually possible around price transparency, do you think, with this legislature? With this legislature, it depends on what their appetite is for the issue. And, you know, the one problem with I think the former now U.S. Senator Rick Scott, when he was when he was Florida's governor, had also pushed hard for price transparency. And if you remember, he even I think even had a line of urgent care clinics where the heap where their big advertisement was like menu board pricing. You can look up on a board and see how much it was being it was costing. like menu board pricing where you can look up on a board and see how much it was being,

it was costing. The question is whether the, whether the medical industry or whether, whether the, not only the hospitals, but also the insurance industry are willing to, you know, they would have to upend the problem with the medical system. A lot of it, just like Medicaid is it's sort of, it's like, it's like a really terrifyingly wired stereo system. And to unplug one thing, something else is going to go wrong. And I'm not advocating for that at all because I, you know, everyone wants price transparency. We got to leave it there. Eric Sarkeesian with Politico. Thanks, Eric. Appreciate it. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Thanks for being here and supporting public media in your community.

Education has long been a lightning rod of controversy in Florida. It was testing teacher pay and charter schools under former Governor Jeb Bush. In the past two years, it's been restrictions on teaching topics like race and sexual orientation, books, rules on pronouns, and a big expansion of school vouchers. rules on pronouns, and a big expansion of school vouchers. State lawmakers will continue what Republican supporters call their deregulation efforts when they begin their law-writing session in Tallahassee in early January. Education is just one of the issues we touched on in our conversation with Senate President Kathleen Pasadena. She's a Republican from Naples. One bill has passed out of the Senate's Education Committee. It would allow third graders who do not meet state standards to still graduate, be promoted to the fourth grade,

if the parent determines that retention is not in the best interests of the child. The student would be provided with certain assistance. In a memo to lawmakers in November, you wrote that, quote, parents are the ultimate arbiter of performance. How do you think this impacts a teacher's ability to assess whether or not a Florida school student is ready for the next grade? Well, I think that's a different question than the regulation. that the parents and the teachers, in my understanding, that the parents who are actively involved in their students' education have conversations with teachers about their students' progress. But a static rule that if you don't pass a test, you don't advance, is problematic. is problematic. And the other thing is that regulation that was created in 1999 was created in a vacuum, basically. It was the beginning of a really wonderful program that Jeb Bush had put together. They didn't have the kind of early intervention programs we have today.

It was, students weren't assessed. Nobody knew what their progress was. They got to third grade and they couldn't read and boom, you had to hold them back. Well, now we are spending many, many hours on our VPK programs, on early intervention, on reading initiatives. There are so many programs out there for the early learners. It's really wonderful. And it all is built on, built on Jeb Bush's original ideas. So I, I believe that if a student is, can't read by third grade, that's way too late. We've got to find it. We've got to get them earlier. They should be starting to learn to read in kindergarten and first grade and second grade. Some of the other issues with holding a student back in third grade is more problematic from a social standpoint than it would be in kindergarten or first grade.

Does the ability to retain a kindergartner, to hold back a kindergartner because of reading deficiency, does that still under this legislation stand with the teacher? That's part of, that's all part of the whole educational process where they make those decisions, but it's not, it's not a statutory requirement or, so are testing and evaluations that are done of the early learners, and those decisions are made in concert with the principal and everybody participates. It's just that we felt that using third grade is too late. Okay. Let me go a little bit further along the educational years of Florida students. The bill drops requirements for passing an Algebra 1 test and a 10th grade English test

to graduate. Why do you think these are no longer necessary? Well, first of all, it was a misunderstanding. We didn't drop the requirement. We just changed it to being a percentage of your grade. Right now, if you don't pass the test, you don't graduate. Now it's just one of many criteria for how to graduate. So, pardon, just for a clarification, President, so could a student fail Algebra I but still graduate high school in Florida? If all of their other criteria are successful. Okay. They can't fail the course. So they have to have all the other criteria successful.

It's just the test. The EOC, the end of course exam. Yeah. And if they fail the test, that only counts as 30%. So it's not a, it's being characterized like we've taken away all those requirements from the habit. I see. School districts have removed hundreds of books from shelves pointing to the parents' rights in education law passed a couple of sessions ago. At least one district no longer recognizes LGBTQ History Month over concerns that it may violate

that state law. Others are still recognizing that. Are you satisfied with the way school districts have implemented the two parental rights and education laws passed over the past couple of years? First of all, I am not familiar with what all the school districts have, how they've been implementing. I know my districts, Collier and Hendry County, I'm familiar with, and I think they're doing a really good job. And I think a lot of the rhetoric is politically motivated on all sides. I stand by my feeling that parents should be involved and have the ability to be involved in what their students read. And I'd like to add something that occurred to me. You know, my children are all older.

I mean, my oldest daughter is in her 40s and my youngest is in her 30s. And back in the day when my kids were in school, I never went in the library. The only time that we parents went to the school was one night, you know, the opening night. And then we went to all their soccer games and all and the school. It was one night, you know, the opening night, and then we went to all their soccer games and all, and they're like, I am so thrilled that parents are getting actively involved in their children's education. In all fairness, you could have visited the school more frequently. You just didn't feel maybe that you had to as a parent. Exactly. And should I have? I don't know. My kids turned out great.

Yeah, yeah. So I'm pleased with that. But I think it's really, you know, and it's tough to think about it. We have the parents, both parents are working these days. Both parents are active and involved, but they still, they're number one priority of their kids. And I am, that is really important to me. Let me ask about a few other issues in our final few minutes here, President.

Home insurance. The governor has proposed a tax holiday for state taxes levied on residential property insurance. He says it'll save about 6%. Do you support this effort? I do. In fact, I'm just familiarizing myself with the issue. I, like many of my colleagues, didn't, you know, there are different buckets of taxes that are assessed on insurance policies. You know, we have to craft it carefully to make sure that the tax savings is passed on to the consumer. So it's a good idea that we have to make sure we craft carefully. The insurance commissioner was on this program last week. I asked him just that question.

He said, statutorily, the insurance companies have to pass along those sales tax holidays if they get out of the legislature and the governor signs them. Let me ask about immigration. The governor's proposed budget includes $5 million to continue the transportation of undocumented migrants to Massachusetts and California. Is that a program you support? Well, it's not a priority of mine. It's something that, you know, I support the governor. I think he's done a terrific job. You know, he hasn't spent that kind of dollars, so I'm not sure whether that amount is necessary. But I certainly give a lot of respect to his budget items as he has to my initiatives. Your colleague across the chamber in the House, House Speaker Paul Renner, one of his

priorities is social media. He has said that social media is having a devastating effect on children. Should social media platforms be legally responsible for what they post on their platforms? Yes. We have heard so many horror stories of some of our children that are being influenced by, you know, social media posts, tweets or whatever, suicides and lack of self-esteem and so many things that will impact them in their future. And I think we need to protect our kids. Our number one priority, protect our kids. This is governed at the federal level now with the Communication Decency Act, Section 230. You're probably familiar with that, which allows platforms like Facebook and X and others not to be held liable for what their users post. You'd like Florida law to be different than what the current federal standing is? I want to protect our kids. I'm not worried about the big social media presence. If our kids are

being negatively harmed, we need to protect them. And honestly, the big platforms should as well, because a lot of those people have kids too. Two political questions, if I may, Madam President. The governor, you endorsed the governor's presidential ambitions in May before he announced his presidential ambitions. Do you still support the governor in his White House run? I do. I do. And I'll tell you why.

He has been a good partner to me and the speaker as we've gone through the process. I will tell you that with our Live Local initiative last session, he was 100% behind it. Very helpful. And in fact, one of the components of our Live Healthy initiative that we're going to roll out soon is a whole mental health initiative, huge deal. And it came from an idea that he threw out on the table one day when we had a meeting. So I feel very comfortable with his, you know, the way he cares about our state, and I'm going to continue to support him.

One other political question. You've said that you agree with the governor that the Republican Party of Florida chairman, Christian Ziegler, should resign. He has not. Do you still believe that Mr. Ziegler should quit the chairmanship? I do. In absence of him resigning, do you support any kind of action that could be taken by the executive committee of the party to remove him? Well, it's up to them. It's my understanding that they have an upcoming meeting and are going to

make a decision, and I presume it will be the right decision. The Senate president in Florida, Kathleen Pasadena. President Pasadena, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Dozens of U.S. House members signed a letter a week ago calling for the resignations of the presidents of MIT, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. After those leaders testified to Congress that calls for the genocide of Jews violated their schools policies depended upon the context. Several Florida members signed that letter. Now, Florida universities have experienced student marches since the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel back in October. Ray Rodriguez is with us now, chancellor of the State University System of Florida. Chancellor Rodriguez, thanks for your time today.

Sure. Happy to be here. Let's start with that central question over the last week or so that university students, parents, alum, and regulators have focused on. Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate rules or code of conduct on campuses of Florida's public colleges and universities? You know, that's a great question. And I think what we witnessed at the U.S. Congress from the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and Penn was a clear failure, a failure on their part to acknowledge that genocide is never okay, and that while you have to uphold First Amendment rights for students, you absolutely have to defend your students from violence, from harassment, and from vandalism. And the problem with those three presidents is on their campuses,

they have had acts of vandalism, they've had acts of violence, and they've had Jewish students harassed, and they've done nothing to protect them. And so that's why they were invited to appear before Congress in the first place. And they just demonstrated by being reluctant to condemn genocide and to defend their students from harassment that they're not equipped to lead our institutions. Chancellor, let me just remind folks that you are listening to the Florida Rundup from your Florida Public Radio station. Chancellor, the question was posed to those leaders as a binary yes or no question. Can you give a declarative yes or no answer to that same question as it relates to Florida's public colleges and universities? Well, what I'm going to say is on our campuses, we don't tolerate violence, we don't tolerate harassment, and we don't tolerate vandalism, period.

That's my answer. So, you know, the representative asking that question asked it multiple times. What is the difficulty in giving a binary yes or no answer to that question? Well, let's go back to that representative. The reason she kept coming back to different ways of asking the question was they would never take a declarative stance in favor of protecting their Jewish students. That's the issue of that hearing. And what I'm making clear today on your show is that's not an issue here in Florida. We defend our Jewish students. We defend all of our students, period. And how do you defend them, I suppose, if there's speech that is at the center of that question, speech that utters support for the genocide of Jews or anyone? Well, you go back and you look at what we can do in terms of what the courts have interpreted. So the courts have been very clear to protect First Amendment rights, but they've also been very clear that the First Amendment cannot be used to target individuals, to harass individuals, or to intimidate them. We do not allow that to occur on our campuses. They have the ability to speak, but they do not have the ability to target individuals, threaten them, harass them, or conduct violence against them.

And that's why you haven't seen in Florida clips like you've seen on campuses across this country, including those three that were there in front of Congress. Harvard, Penn, MIT, it's happened quite a bit on the coast, the West Coast as well, those institutions. We don't have that behavior here because we don't tolerate it. Yeah, Chancellor, let me ask the question this way then. Is context important when deciding whether or not calls for genocide against Jews breaks a code of student conduct at a university in Florida? I would say the moral answer to this is genocide is always wrong, period. It should be acknowledged as such. How do state universities in Florida draw the line regulating speech as they are public universities, not private universities? And that's a good question because there is a difference between

what public universities can do and what private universities can do. The court has held that private universities have the ability to abridge First Amendment rights. And so in a private university, if you have an organization who has taken steps and said things that are offensive, they don't even have to be illegal. They can just be offensive. A private university can disband the organization and send them away. In a public university, First Amendment rights do apply. And so what the courts have constrained us to do is to say the First Amendment has to

be honored. is to say the First Amendment has to be honored. However, the utilization of the First Amendment cannot, as I said earlier, move into the area of violence or harassment or vandalism, and it can impair the operations of the university business as well. So, you know, you've seen situations in other states where protesters have seized buildings and occupied them and prevented instruction from going on. Those presidents have said, well, this is free speech. That wouldn't happen in Florida because that is illegal. You cannot, you have free speech, but you don't have the ability to impede other students' ability to learn, which is what it does. Yeah. And Chancellor, arguably that's a violation of free speech, regardless

if it's a private university or a public university, because it's not speech, it's action. That would be the argument here. Chancellor, I'll invite you back on the program. We've got lots more to talk about, but I appreciate you creating the time in your schedule today. Thank you. Sure. Have a good day. Chancellor Rodriguez is the

head of the state college and university system here in the state of Florida. Stick with us. We've got plenty more to talk about, including the weird weather this weekend from the peninsula to the panhandle. That's next. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Thanks for being along with us. Next week on this program, two special reporting projects to bring you. More children in Florida are getting their hands on guns. Those working to prevent youth gun violence say every time they feel like

they're making progress another tragedy strikes. And that's kind of why we need help. It's never ending. Growing up with guns explores the way guns can endanger kids lives and futures. And then come with us to the Everglades. A bright, lit place. It's like shining. Look at that. Look at it. It's shining, the water from the sun. Retrace the decades-long fight over land, water, and the willpower to save what's left of the River of Grass.

That's next week on our program. Today, the calendar may say it's the dry and calm season, but don't tell Mother Nature. This weekend brings the threat of a lot of rain and really high winds across much of the state. Megan Borowski is a meteorologist with the Florida Public Radio Emergency Network. Megan, welcome to what's supposed to be the quiet season here in Florida. What is this storm? Is it a tropical storm, an extra tropical system? What do you call it? Right now, I'm just calling it an area of low pressure. It's not going to be a tropical storm. When we're talking about the tropics, we need a warm core cyclone. So thinking

about it, you want warm temperatures surrounding the center of the low pressure. Here, we certainly will have something of a gradient where we have warm air ahead of the center of the low pressure. Here we certainly will have something of a gradient where we have warm air ahead of the center of the low and then cooler and drier air, something of a gradient behind it. So this is going to be more of your typical cyclone, mid-latitude cyclone. Because it's over the Gulf, it's going to have some moisture associated with it. So it's not going to be the textbook mid-latitude cyclone, but it's not tropical. Okay. Nor'easter?

I've heard that phrase thrown around, too. It will become a Nor'easter. But not yet in Florida, though. We're too south for it to become a Nor'easter, right? Correct. Yeah. I mean, it's a developing Nor'easter. So what will happen is, at least as of the latest forecast tracks here, we'll have the low ejecting from the Gulf of Mexico.

And that'll it'll actually get scooped up by by another system that will be working its way across the country. It'll get scooped up by by that wind flow and then pretty much dragged northeastward through paralleling the Atlantic coast. northeastward through paralleling the Atlantic Coast. First, we have to get through Saturday up and down the peninsula, almost all the way across the Panhandle as well. How bad could it get this weekend? Well, so it's interesting because we're caught between high pressure and that developing low right now. So conditions across the Atlantic Coast for South Florida right now are pretty bad.

I mean, considering we've got really gusty onshore winds, coastal flooding, spotty showers. so it's already not great. But as that low does approach, we'll get some bands of thunderstorms wrapping into South Florida during the afternoon tomorrow. Then the core of the low should track onshore really near the Big Bend, almost kind of near where Hurricane Adalia made landfall. That's at least the latest forecast track. But heavy rainfall will become more and more possible overnight, Saturday into Sunday over South Florida. And we do have a threat for severe weather overnight tomorrow into Sunday morning.

Does that mean the threat of tornadoes? Yeah. So we will have the potential for supercells damaging wind gusts and tornadoes. And the most important part here is that the risk is at night. We need to have ways that will wake us up in the middle of the night, get those alerts that will wake us up. You mentioned the rain. I've seen some forecast models in some areas, four, five, six inches or more. And some of the wind forecasts are in the tropical storm region, right? Not, I mean, they could, we could get tropical storm force gusts. Right now,

it looks like 30 to 40 mile an hour winds sustained right around the core of the storm, which is typical of what you see in the Northeast from these systems during the wintertime. As far as rainfall amounts go, it's really going to depend on the track of the storm. Some areas could get three to five inches. You know, if in South Florida we get training thunderstorms, we could get anywhere from two to two to four inches. It's really going to depend on the track of the storm. And then what about any storm surge threats in that Big Bend area? So right now we've got those onshore winds here in South Florida and we have coastal flooding there. But yes, on the Gulf Coast, as those winds do shift to southerly and then southwesterly, we're going to get those onshore winds and that

could give us a coastal flooding situation. By Sunday, cleared out? We should be starting to clear out from southwest to northeast. It looks like the rain will taper off and by Sunday night, we should be getting a lot better. All right. So how unusual is this for, I'm going to call this, you know, mid-December for this kind of system to impact almost the entire state? So, you know, we, during an El Nino year, we see increased numbers of cold fronts coming through and getting those squall lines, something like a full-blown system like this. and getting those squall lines, something like a full-blown system like this. I don't know the exact or I don't have an exact number of storms,

but it's not something that we deal with every winter to this magnitude. So, you know, if this were October or September, I'd be like, yeah, this is common. But at this point, this would be something you'd be expecting more up north. Yeah, indeed. Megan Borowski, probably a busy weekend for you and the crew at the Florida Public more up north. Yeah, indeed. Megan Borowski, probably a busy weekend for you and the crew at the Florida Public Radio Emergency Network. Thanks, Megan. You got it. And I'm Tom Hudson. You're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio station. We've got two more stories about water for you this week. First, about one out of every seven people in Florida rely on private well water for their drinking water. That's about two and a half million people.

But according to researchers with the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, about a third of private well users are not equipped to properly maintain their own well or even test the water that comes from it. Environmental reporter Molly Duregg reports now from our partner station WMFE in Orlando. It's not a city life, it's a country life. Tara Turner's lived in Bithlow since she was 15. It's a part of East Orange County known for its junkyards and mobile homes, where Turner always lived. Until now.

Today she's showing me around her new digs, a home she recently started renting. She loves the rural lifestyle out here where she's got almost half an acre of land. But what Turner doesn't love is taking care of her private well and water softener system. This is it right here. You put the salt inside of here. You have to have this filled up all the way up here with salt and it's $10 a bag. That $10 adds up quickly for Turner who says she lives on disability. Still, she says the pricier salt is worth it. You have to buy the kind that takes the iron out. Turner says she was lucky to move into a place with a water softener system already installed because they can cost thousands of dollars. Without one, she says her water would look even worse. The water turns your appliances, your tubs, your toilet

really orange, like a burnt orange color, like a dark orange because of all the iron in it. That iron can give water a metallic taste or odor, but scientists say it isn't dangerous to our health. The government does regulate other harmful contaminants like E. coli, lead, and copper, but only for public water systems, not private water systems like Turner's well. And Turner's just one of approximately two and a half million Floridians who rely on wells for drinking water, according to UF IFAS. So how many of you here have private wells? Ooh, that's more than 30 percent.

That's Dr. Yilin Zheng, an environmental engineer focused on water at UF IFAS. She's speaking to folks who stopped by her water testing lab during an open house at MREC, the Mid-Florida Research and Education Center in Apopka. Zheng says many Florida well users lack education. They don't have knowledge of private wells. They don't know what they need to test or where to test. Different chemicals require different kinds of water tests. Zhreng shows her guests an image of one water sample under a UV light. If it's a fluorescent, then you also have E. coli. Super pretty, but you have E. coli.

Zhreng says generally you can't trust generic water testing kits. Instead, she suggests finding your closest state-certified water testing lab. For people participating in her grant-funded work, Zhreng says she provides one free water testing. Our preliminary data shows that most private well users at least attend our program, they are low-income families. So we would like to provide this free service to people who need it. Back in Bithlow, Tara Turner's showing me how she resolves one frequent issue with her well by using a stick to unclog the pump's pressure switch. If a lizard gets in there, you got to come out here and go like that, and it sticks. Turner says it's one of the first things she suggests to her neighbors

who tend to call her up when they have issues with their own wells. A lot of people aren't knowledge about this stuff. It's just there's different things you've got to know about the well. It's not just sitting out in your yard. It's an education gap UF IFAS hopes to help close with the Florida Well Owner Network. In Orlando, I'm hope to be on the cutting edge of cleaning drinking water. They're bringing in a new technology to the United States that removes organic matter. Now, it's supposed to make it easier to filter out what are called forever chemicals.

Jessica Mazaros reports now from our partner station, WUSF. Tampa is hoping to remove things like decaying vegetation from drinking water through a Dutch technology called SIX, or suspended ion exchange. Sarah Burns is with the city's water department. She says this advancement means Tampa is getting ahead of the federal government's expected limits on PFAS, or forever chemicals, in drinking water. You might not even be able to get to the PFAS at all if you didn't remove the organics first. The initial installation of the new technology at one of Tampa's water treatment facilities will cost $200 million and should be done by 2032. The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to release official PFAS limits for drinking water after completing a national study.

The city will then need additional filtration to meet those limits. I'm Jessica Mizaros in Tampa. PFAS, those forever chemicals, are pretty common. They're a group of chemicals used to make coatings and products that resist heat, grease, and water. They're found in everything from furniture, nonstick cookware, and makeup products. Finally in the roundup this week, sure, the college football playoffs snub of Florida State still smarts, but another Florida college football team is playing for a national championship. The Florida A&M Rattlers face the Howard University Bison in the Celebration Bowl Saturday

for the National Black College Championship. The Rattlers won the Southwestern Athletic Conference Championship earlier this month. This is them celebrating on the field. It sent the team to its first national title game in more than 20 years. Head coach Willie Simons tells HBCU Game Day the team has been playing for the chance all season long with more than football on the line. I challenged the young men when we started the season that the conversation and celebration bowl

isn't just about how good they are on the field, but how well they perform in the classroom as well. The game kicks off at noon Saturday in Atlanta. And that's our program for this week. The Florida Roundup is produced by WLRN Public Media in Miami and WUSF Public Media in Miami and WUSF Public Media in Tampa. Bridget O'Brien is the producer. WLRN's Vice President of Radio and the program's Technical Director is Peter Maris. Engineering help each and every week from Doug Peterson and

Charles Michaels. Richard Ives answers our phones. The theme music is provided by Miami Jazz Guitarist Aaron Leibos at aaronleibos.com. If you missed any of today's program, you can download it, check out past programs, and subscribe by going to wlrn.org slash podcasts. Thanks for calling, listening, emailing, and supporting public media. I'm Tom Hudson. Have a terrific weekend.