(1) The Legislature finds that, despite significant state investments in health care programs, millions of low-income Floridians, many of them families with children, continue to lack access to basic health care. The Legislature finds that local solutions to health care problems can have a dramatic and positive effect on the health status of children and families. Local governments are better equipped to identify the health care needs of the children and families in their communities, mobilize the community to donate time and services to help their neighbors, and organize health care providers to provide health services to needy children and families.
(2) It is the intent of the Legislature to provide matching funds to Florida counties in the form of primary care for children and families challenge grants to stimulate the development of coordinated primary health care delivery systems for low-income children and families. Further, it is the intent of the Legislature to foster the development of coordinated primary health care delivery systems which emphasize volunteerism, cooperation, and broad-based participation by public and private health care providers. Finally, it is the intent of the Legislature that the Primary Care for Children and Families Challenge Grant Program function as a partnership between state and local governments and private sector health care providers.
History.—s. 2, ch. 97-263.