Florida Phoenix
Florida legislators are poised to pass a law that makes it clear that state government can’t kick out Medicaid beneficiaries with physical or intellectual disabilities absent a material change in the individual’s disability or economic status that affects eligibility.
The bill stems from the recent Medicaid unwinding from the COVID pandemic. A House staff analysis of the bill shows that between April 2023 and February 2025, “approximately 534 disabled individuals lost Medicaid coverage because they failed to provide information requested by the DCF (Department of Children and Families) to make an eligibility determination.”
The analysis continues: “The number of individuals who may have remained eligible for had they submitted the requested information to the DCF is unknown. During the same period, approximately 3,357 disabled individuals lost Medicaid coverage due to not meeting income and asset eligibility requirements.”
The House passed HB 1227 unanimously Wednesday. The identical Senate companion bill (SB 7032) is on the Senate calendar, which means it can be taken up for consideration during Session.
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Christine Sexton reporting. Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: [email protected].
2 comments
SuzyQ
April 25, 2025 at 9:48 am
Medicaid should be abolished once and for all.
MarvinM
April 25, 2025 at 2:28 pm
Hope you are rich enough to afford long-term care in your old age then. And/or are on really good terms with your relatives and you already have a plan in place where they will take care of you in your infirm years.
And if you do, good for you. But millions of Americans are not so well-positioned and unless we make radical (and I think actually needed) changes to Medicare, Medicaid is the only thing keeping many elderly people off the streets.
That’s just one of the things that Medicaid does. To suggest it should be abolished is cruel UNLESS there is a plan, an actual working plan (not nebulous “block grants to states”), that lays out exactly how everything currently covered by medicaid will be covered by the new plan at the same (or even an enhanced) level.