Christine Jordan Sexton
A 100-strong member coalition called Health Care for Florida Now is spearheading a four-city event today to rally the Florida Legislature and Gov. Rick Scott to expand Medicaid.
There are scheduled events in Tallahassee, Tampa, Orlando and Miami and the coalition is asking Floridians to call their elected officials and lobby them to tap into available federal dollars to allow the working poor to qualify for Medicaid.
There are about 669,000 Floridians who are in the coverage gap–they are too poor to qualify for Obamacare health insurance subsidies available through the federal health care exchange but don’t meet current Medicaid qualifications, which in Florida are restrictive, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
The federal government pays the full costs of Medicaid through 2016 in states that expand the program to individuals earning 138 percent of the federal poverty level or $11,670 annually or less for an individual and $23,850 or less for a family of four. Thereafter, it covers 90 percent of the costs.
Nationally 4 million people live in states that haven’t expanded the Medicaid program and have fallen into the coverage gap. Seventeen percent of them live in Florida. Over half of those in the coverage gap are middle aged (35-54) or near elderly (age 55 to 64) according to a Kaiser Family Foundation November 12 report.
Just under two thirds–64 percent–of Floridians in the coverage gap are in families with a worker or are working themselves. There was no Florida specific information on where they were employed but nationally 51 percent of the workers in the coverage gap work for small firms that are not subject to penalties in the federal health law for not offering coverage, according to the report.
