Osceola News-Gazette

By: Charlie Reed

Dec. 15 is the deadline for people — not covered by employer plans – to get healthcare insurance for 2019. There were 52,000 uninsured residents in Osceola County in 2017, according to the latest U.S. Census data. That’s about 15 percent of the total population.

…

Florida did not expand Medicaid, which to date, leaves 700,000 residents with no health insurance and few options for affordable care and prescription medication. In all states, including Florida, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, CHIP, provides low-cost health coverage to children in families that earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid. But the number of uninsured children is up, most predominantly in the 16 states that did not expand Medicaid. The number of uninsured children in Florida grew to about 325,000 in 2017 from 288,000 in 2016, bringing the state’s rate of uninsured children to 7.3 percent, according to a recent report from the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families.

…

Read more here.