House budget negotiators pushed back against the Senate Wednesday afternoon over health and human services spending — opposing pouring any money into programs that look designed to support the federal health care overhaul.

House lead negotiator Matt Hudson, R-Naples, rejected a series of Senate proposals, including one that would have increased Medicaid reimbursement rates for doctors.

The $338.3 million item was floated earlier Wednesday by Senate Health and Human Services budget chief Joe Negron, R-Stuart, along with another $37.1 million offer to boost payments to dentists treating Medicaid patients.

Hudson said the House won’t accept anything that could be seen as preparing the state for implementing the federal health care rewrite approved by Congress and pushed by the Obama administration.

Talks will continue between the two sides later tonight.

But the House also shrugged at the Senate’s earlier pitch to revive about one-quarter of state spending for the Medically Needy and Medicaid Aged and Disabled programs — which provides costly prescription coverage to 90,000 Floridians, many in critical health.

The House is insisting these big-ticket programs draw full funding in the final state budget.

Hudson said he welcomed the Senate’s move away from its earlier plan to strip state dollars from the programs.

“But it certainly needs to be a bigger step, in my mind,” Hudson said.

In its offer, though, the House finds money for spending on these programs by reducing state payments to hospitals and nursing homes that care for Medicaid patients. The Senate sought to shield nursing homes from the rate cuts — but the House is proposing 8.5 percent reductions in state support.

Meanwhile, community care providers in the deficit-plagued Agency for Persons with Disabilities would face 4.5 percent rate cuts, in the proposal from Hudson.

Negron and Hudson also tentatively agreed to work on setting stricter guidelines for spending by the agency, which Gov. Rick Scott sought to discipline earlier this spring with 15 percent rate hikes aimed at easing a $170 million deficit that had grown over several years.

Negron said lawmakers wanted to preserve services for the Floridians with Down Syndrome, autistic, spinal bifida and other disabilities served by APD. But he cautioned, “Even if you are doing the Lord’s work, you can’t bounce checks.”

After taking weeks of heat, Gov. Rick Scott said Thursday he’s withdrawing his order cutting payments to caregivers for Floridians with Down Syndrome, spinal bifida, autism and other developmental disabilities.

Scott confirmed what he hinted earlier this week — during a visit to the state’s Agency for Persons with Disabilities. The House and Senate have agreed to find dollars in their budget proposal to cover the $174 million deficit that prompted his 15 percent rate cut, which he said will be lifted by the beginning of next week.

“I became concerned that we would run out of money, and as you know, this is a group of people who are very dependent on what the state does….so we did an emergency order to deal with that,” Scott said Thursday.

Scott’s emergency order — issued with little warning — sent shockwaves through community agencies. Many said they would likely close some group homes, lay-off staff and curtail services because of how Scott chose to “deal with,” the deficit.

Dozens of developmentally disabled Floridians crowded Scott’s Capitol office last week ago protesting the cuts. The governor, though, was out of town that day.

“I’ll be pulling my emergency order, and making sure that our providers have the funds that they need to take care this group of individuals who really need this care,” Scott said Thursday.

After developmentally disabled Floridians crowded Rick Scott’s office last week, Scott on Tuesday said he’d be willing to let payments to caregivers return to levels existing before he slashed rates by 15 percent to close a $174 million budget deficit.

Scott disclosed his new position under questioning from reporters after the governor met with employees at the Agency for Persons with Disabilities headquarters in Tallahassee.

 In talking with APD workers, Scott didn’t mention it — instead sticking with what has become his standard, meet-the-staff stump speech, talking about the need for communication on the job, career advancement and his accomplishments as governor.

But speaking with reporters, Scott said he would rescind his executive order cutting rates if the Senate follows the House lead and restores fully

“We’ve got to make sure this doesn’t continue,” Scott said of APD’s steady string of budget deficits, which spans at least the past four years. “We’ve got to come up with a funding mechanism and management team that takes care of this very vulnerable group of people, and also make sure we live within our means.”

Asked if APD has been historically underfunded — given that the agency has a 19,000-person waiting list, Scott paused.

“We’ve got to make sure that we take care of this group as well as we can,” Scott said, but he added, “We have to make sure we don’t waste taxpayers money.”

Dozens of developmentally disabled Floridians and their caregivers crowded Gov. Rick Scott’s office Wednesday, protesting a 15 percent rate-cut the Republican chief executive ordered last week to close a $170 million deficit.

The crowd came to the Capitol the same day the House and Senate were debating next year’s budget proposals — which seek to include enough dollars for the Agency for Persons with Disabilities that the rate reduction would be lifted.

 But for the closing three months of the current budget year, jobs are threatened and group homes may close, advocates said.

“Most of our staff makes less than $8-an-hour,” said Ross O’Banion, executive director of Angels Unaware, Inc., which operates eight group homes in the Tampa area. “They’re not in it for the money. And about 70 percent of the people who live in our homes have no parents, no nearby relatives, or they’ve been taken away from parents because of abuse.

“They have no safety net,” O’Banion said.

Advocates for those with Down Syndrome, cerebral palsy, spinal bifida and other disabilities organized Wednesday’s gathering at the Capitol, which drew hundreds from around the state.

But those at the rally were disappointed. No lawmakers emerged to address the crowd when it began gathering outside the Capitol. And outside Scott’s office, where they crowded the reception area and lined a Capitol corridor, supporters said a Scott aide stepped out only to tell them the governor was out of town — touting tourism in Palm Beach County.

Gov. Rick Scott’s office is describing his order cutting payments to community care providers for Floridians with Down Syndrome, autism and other developmental disabilities as a step needed to keep an overspending state agency from going off a cliff.

But Palm Beach County organizations affected by the 15 percent pay cut are calling the move, ”draconian.”  And they fear the next round of reductions certain in the 2011-12 state  budget.

United Cerebral Palsy of South Florida President and CEO Dr. Joe Aniello said his agency expects to lose close to $500,000 in the next three months, and many patients with severe handicaps may find themselves without services they need to survive.

“(Scott) is all screwed up in his perception, and the information he is getting from his advisors is bad,” Aniello said of the cost-cutting.

Gov. Rick Scott ordered an audit of the Agency for Persons with Disabilities the day after his hand-picked head of the agency Carl Littlefield abruptly resigned.

Scott asked inspector general Melinda Miguel to investigate the agency that in recent years has operated in the red. At one point, the agency, which provides services to more than 26,000 disabled Floridians and their families, had a deficit of more than $100 million and a wait-list of more than 15,000.

“I gotta tell you, I can’t imagine an agency not living within its budget. That’s one thing I’m very committed to,” Scott told reporters this morning after announcing the investigation.

Scott said he did not know the extent of the overruns or if any of the money was misspent.

“We don’t know the exact dollar amount but we’re told it’s very significant,” Scott said.

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Carl Littlefield, Gov. Rick Scott’s pick to head the Agency for Persons with Disabilities, unexpectedly withdrew his name from consideration last night, the eve before he was slated to face an inquiry about his handling of a sex scandal in Hillsborough County.

Littlefield was to appear at 9 a.m. this morning before the Senate Children, Families and Elder Affairs Committee where chairwoman Ronda Storms was expected to question him about his role in overseeing a group home for the developmentally disabled that allegedly permitted residents to have sex with each other.

Littlefield was the area administrator in charge of overseeing the group home in Seffner.

Former state representative Carl Littlefield will head up the state’s Agency for Persons with Disabilities.

Scott tapped Littlefield, currently an area administrator for the agency, to the post today.

Bryan Vaughan, currently the governor’s Commission on Disabilities executive director, will serve as Littlefield’s chief of staff, Scott announced.

Littlefield replaces current APD Director Jim DeBeaugrine.

The agency has been plagued in the past by spending troubles and waiting lists of tens of thousands waiting for services.