Florida
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Medicaid’s Role in Small Towns and Rural Areas
Key Findings Background One-fifth of people in the United States live in areas that are classified as non-urban. Residents of rural areas and small towns face additional challenges accessing needed health services compared to residents of metro areas for a variety of reasons including acute provider shortages, limited connectivity, and long distances to travel to…
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Florida’s Governor Spends Taxpayer Money on Lawyers to Further Delay Covering Children
On June 22, 2023 Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB121 a bill that expanded eligibility to cover children through the state’s KidCare program (the state’s version of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)) to 300 percent of the poverty line. The bill unanimously passed both chambers of the Republican-controlled Florida legislature. The state of Florida has…
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Judge Dismisses Florida’s Attempt to Take Down New Federal Coverage Protection for Children
A federal court in Tampa dismissed the state of Florida’s legal challenge to the Biden Administration’s implementation of a new provision of federal law guaranteeing 12 months of continuous coverage in the Children’s Health Insurance Program – denying the state’s request for a preliminary injunction and, more importantly, dismissed the case from his courtroom. The…
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It Looks Like Florida is Cutting Children Off CHIP in Violation of Federal Rules
While children are losing Medicaid coverage nationwide due to the unwinding process, new data reveals that Florida has disenrolled 22,576 children from its Healthy Kids CHIP program since January 1, 2024, when new federal protections requiring states to provide 12 months of continuous coverage in Medicaid and CHIP went into effect, which included barring states…
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A Deeper Dive into Florida’s Lawsuit Seeking to Undermine the New Requirement for 12-Months Continuous Eligibility for Children in Separate State CHIP Programs
As my colleague Joan Alker explains, the state of Florida recently sued the federal government to block guidance from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) implementing the new requirement that all states provide 12-months continuous eligibility for children in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) as of January 1, 2024. Specifically,…
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State of Florida Files Legal Challenge to Weaken Continuous Coverage Protection for Children in CHIP Nationwide
On February 1, the State of Florida filed a lawsuit in federal court in Tampa against the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in an effort to prevent the agency from enforcing 12-month continuous eligibility in the state’s CHIP program. As loyal readers of Say Ahhh! know, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 required that…
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Press Statement on Florida 12 Month Continuous Coverage for Children Lawsuit
Following is a statement by Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families responding to a Florida lawsuit against a federal law requiring 12 months of continuous coverage for children enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP: “As a consequence of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, a new federal law went…
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Florida’s Rolling Out a New Medicaid/SNAP Portal Next Week – Throwing Gas on the Unwinding Fire
With little advance notice to the community, the state of Florida announced in mid-November that it was moving next week (December 5th) to a new portal for eligibility for Medicaid, SNAP, child care and TANF; and that every person/household in the state accessing those benefits will need to create a new account. Every person create…
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State Medicaid and CHIP Snapshots, 2023
The Georgetown University Center for Children and Families (CCF) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) created factsheets underscoring the importance of Medicaid in providing coverage for children in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Sources available here. Previous snapshots can be found here (2019), here (2018) and here (2017). Check out more interactive…
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How Many Children Just Lost Coverage in Florida?
We just received a copy of Florida’s report to CMS on its first month of “unwinding” the Medicaid continuous coverage provisions for April and the data is alarming. Of the 461,322 people whose eligibility was checked, more than half — 54% or 249,427 people — were terminated. Most of those terminated (82%) had their cases…
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Hundreds of Thousands of Children Could Lose Coverage in Florida Alone as U.S. Approaches High Stakes Medicaid Unwinding
As readers of SayAhhh! know, Congress has given the green light to states to begin checking eligibility for all Medicaid beneficiaries who have been protected from disenrollment by federal law since the Families First Covid Relief Act passed in March 2020. Terminations can begin on April 1, 2023; states have a year to complete the…
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New Florida Law Requires Stratified Performance Measure Data for Medicaid Managed Care
By Anne Swerlick, Senior Policy Analyst, Florida Policy Institute Experts agree that to reduce health disparities, you first need to know where they exist. The collection of health plan performance measure data, such as timely prenatal care and well-child check-ups, broken down by demographic factors like race and ethnicity is essential for developing targeted health…
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Medicaid Wars: The Unwinding (and Litigation) Continues (Episode IV)
It’s been seven months and change since the Biden Administration took office. What it found waiting for it on January 20 was not just a crisis of democracy and a global pandemic and a surge of unaccompanied children at the border, but also a large pile of policy intended to undercut the Administration’s ability to…
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A Profile of Florida’s Low-Wage Uninsured Workers
The recently enacted American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARP) includes new large financial incentives for states to extend health insurance coverage to low-wage workers and other adults earning less than $17,775 a year.¹ These incentives apply to regular spending in a state’s Medicaid program and offer a five-percentage point across the board increase in the…
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Florida Legislature’s Medicaid Folly
The Florida Legislature is about to make final decisions about the state’s budget in the next few weeks – decisions that are constructed on false fiscal assumptions — with reckless options on the table that would weaken the state’s health care system and lead to more uninsured Floridians if finalized. During what we all hope…
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Trump’s Farewell Gift to Florida’s Medicaid Program
A few days before departing, former CMS Administrator and Trump appointee Seema Verma handed out ten-year Medicaid demonstration waiver extensions for political allies, with Texas and Florida,[1] approvals being granted late Friday, January 15th. The Friday before (Jan. 8th) CMS had approved the infamous and dangerous Tennessee waiver, which my colleagues explained beautifully here. Ten…
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Florida’s number of children without health coverage is soaring
Orlando Weekly By: Trimmel Gomes The number of children without access to health coverage is on the rise in Florida. An annual report released today by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families reveals there were 55,000 more uninsured children in the state in 2019 than in 2016. Anne Swerlick, a health policy analyst…
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Florida health care providers get reprieve from devastating’ proposal
Biz Journal Verma unveiled the proposed rule in November, saying at the time there had been a proliferation of supplemental payment arrangements “where shady recycling schemes drive up taxpayer costs and pervert the system.” The rule drew widespread criticism from disparate interests. Joan Alker, executive director of the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown…
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Fact Sheets: Latino Children’s Health Coverage
State officials’ decisions about coverage options, especially in times of crises, have a profound effect on children and can exacerbate pre-existing racial and ethnic disparities. For notes on methodology, visit this page. Arizona Fact Sheet California Fact Sheet Florida Fact Sheet Georgia Fact Sheet Nevada Fact Sheet Puerto Rico Fact Sheet Texas Fact Sheet For…
