Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is best known for his state battles over cultural issues ahead of a potential 2024 Republican primary bid.
DeSantis, who easily won reelection in the 2022 midterm elections, has pushed state legislation that would allow parents to sue school districts that teach their children critical race theory. He has also suggested that state colleges and universities could lose funding if they were found to promote “stale ideology” and “indoctrination.”
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But DeSantis also has been active on more bread-and-butter economic issues during his four-plus years as governor. While DeSantis has touted his record as a fiscal conservative, he’s also led the enactment of increased healthcare spending in Florida. It’s the kind of issue that could help DeSantis stand out from his looming 2024 GOP primary rivals, including his fellow Floridian, former President Donald Trump, who is already in the White House contest.
On Jan. 5, DeSantis announced $79 million for nursing education and healthcare partnerships to bolster the state’s existing nursing programs. Lawmakers approved the programs in an omnibus education bill last year.
The move comes amid a shrinking Florida nursing pool in a state with the nation’s second-oldest population. Many nurses left the profession during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some estimates have also shown 30% of new nurses quit after their first year. And a Florida Hospital Association report projected a shortage of about 60,000 nurses in the Sunshine State by 2035.
An advocacy group, the Florida Nurse Coalition, has sought better pay, no wage caps, improved patient ratios, and laws shielding health workers from violence.
The funding will reward public postsecondary nursing programs “that have gone above and beyond to train Floridians,” DeSantis said in announcing the new nursing spending, adding, “These awards will meet a critical need of our state by ensuring we continue to have high-quality nursing graduates and by creating new opportunities for Floridians interested in healthcare. I am grateful to the colleges and universities who have gone above and beyond to train the next generation of nurses in our state.”
The nursing is part of a broader healthcare push by DeSantis, narrowly elected as Florida governor in 2018 before his reelection romp last year. The onetime JAG Corps officer, a graduate of Yale and Harvard Law School who spent six years as a House member representing north Florida, hasn’t made as many headlines on healthcare issues, even though they’ve been a big part of his governing agenda.
In July 2022, DeSantis issued Executive Order 22-164, which aims to increase price transparency in prescription costs and to make pharmacy benefit managers accountable when managing prescription drug benefits for insurance companies. In 2019, DeSantis signed into law legislation eliminating portions of Florida’s certificate of need program, common state programs to make sure there are not too many competing services in one area. The idea was to increase competition in the healthcare sector.
The nursing funding provided by the DeSantis administration will be awarded through the Linking Industry to Nursing Education fund through some state colleges and independent nonprofit schools with the proper accreditation requirements, among other institutions. The program was recently created by Florida’s legislature in hopes of mitigating the ongoing nursing shortage.
LINE will provide matching funds on a dollar-to-dollar basis to participating groups, dispersing $19 million accordingly. The funding may then be used to award scholarships, recruit faculty, purchase equipment, and support simulation centers to advance nursing programs across Florida.
It’s not the Sunshine State’s behemoth institutions that are getting LINE funding but rather smaller schools like Broward College, Hillsborough Community College, and Tallahassee Community College.
In early 2022, DeSantis also approved over $125 million for nursing education for fiscal 2022-2023. The increased funding for nurses provides for student loan reimbursement, scholarships, expanding infrastructure, and recruitment incentives for nurses who work within Veterans Affairs.
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Since becoming governor, DeSantis has awarded over $5 billion to workforce education funding to bolster high-quality training programs across the state. However, some analysts have derided DeSantis as a “free lunch conservative,” asserting he has paid for nursing and other programs with federal dollars. Still, the Cato Institute’s fiscal-conservative scorecard has applauded DeSantis’s efforts to propose lean budgets and “many fiscally conservative actions.” The think tank found DeSantis’s “scores above average on spending.”
Whether that’s enough for DeSantis to claim the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, should he run, is an open question. But combined with culture wars that excite the Republican base of voters that actually determines presidential primaries, he’s got a good argument to make.
