Daniel Tilson: Tell House to end hidden healthcare tax, close coverage gap

We’re more than a quarter of the way through the 60-day 2015 legislative session. And our Florida Legislature remains deeply divided about whether to close the health insurance coverage gap that upwards of a million Floridians have fallen into, through no fault of their own.

Almost a quarter of them are unemployed workers actively looking for a job. Another quarter of them are considered “not in the workforce” – students, non-working spouses, the disabled and those who’ve given up job-hunting. The other half of this gravely endangered population consists of working poor people, many with multiple jobs.

With minimum wages too low to live, much less raise a family on, and ongoing unwillingness of Republican majority legislators to raise those wages, these hard-working Floridians are left too poor to purchase health insurance. Yet amazingly enough, they’re also not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid coverage, because Florida has some of the stingiest eligibility requirements nationwide.

​That’s the Florida coverage gap, or trap, that turns working moms and dads, struggling students, military veterans and hundreds of thousands of industrious, law-abiding citizens into innocent victims of their own government’s dysfunction.

They rarely seek medical care. When they do, they go to hospital emergency rooms and receive “uncompensated” care. Hospitals then make up for that by charging insurance companies more for services used by insured patients. Insurance companies then make up for that by raising premiums and copayments for both individual and business customers.

It’s called the “hidden healthcare tax.” It costs us all plenty of money…but that’s not all.

Because so many who find themselves in the coverage gap receive so little preventive care and wait so long to seek medical attention, they often show up at emergency rooms with advanced stages of illnesses requiring the most expensive levels of care – driving costs shifted to the rest of us still higher.

And then, for those whose consciences and moral codes take precedence over politics, partisanship and purse strings, there’s the human cost to consider.

Depending on which reports you cite, anywhere from three to six men, women and children die every day, because Gov. Rick Scott and Florida House Republicans refuse to close the gap and give them life-saving healthcare coverage.

Forget Scott’s 2012 proclamation of support for using federal funds to eliminate the gap and the costs that come with it. Pure politics. Understand that if he were being honest and sincere, he’d find a way to force House Republicans blocking progress for three years now to support 2015 Senate Bill SPB 7044, a big compromise step towards closing the gap once and for all.

You can help, by making calls to the governor, your local state representative and House Speaker Steve Crisafulli. Tell them to stop playing politics with your money and people’s lives. Tell them to close the coverage gap, this year.

Daniel Tilson has a Boca Raton-based communications firm called Full Cup Media, specializing in online video and written content for non-profits, political candidates and organizations, and small businesses. Column courtesy of Context Florida.