Health
Coverage Gap Impacts Florida Parents
Posted September 10, 2014 08:10 am
TALLAHASSEE, FL - Florida parents are among those feeling the effects of the state's decision to turn down federal dollars to expand Medicaid.
A new report by the Urban Institute examines the impact to the more than 800,000 Floridians who fall into the coverage gap; they don't qualify for publicly funded-health coverage or an insurance policy through the Affordable Care Act.
Related:
Florida Missing the Boat With
Medicaid Expansion
Genevieve Kenney, co-director of the Urban Institute's Health Policy Center, said states such as Florida, which opted out of Medicaid expansion, may be hung up on partisan issues.
"It could also be that there's been so much focus on,
and so much rhetoric around, the politics of the
Affordable Care Act," she said. "Maybe not quite as much
focus on the human dimension and what is at stake for
families."
The report said states that have accepted federal
funding have seen nearly a 33 percent drop in the rate
of parents without health insurance. Florida lawmakers
turned down the funding because of concerns over costs
to the state. The federal government is paying 100
percent of the cost until 2016 and will reduce its
funding to 90 percent by 2020.
Leah
Barber-Heinz, chief executive of Florida CHAIN - a group
working to increase access to affordable health care -
said passing up Medicaid expansion has been especially
tough for Florida, with its large service and
hospitality industry.
"There are so many folks that are working, for example,
in the service industries, and these are low-wage
positions," she said. "They do not have access to health
coverage in many of these types of jobs, and a lot of
these folks are parents and have children at home."
Seventeen percent of uninsured parents surveyed reported
having fair or poor health, and slightly more said they
had mental health concerns. In her job, Barber-Heinz
said, the difficult part is telling parents they're not
eligible for health coverage, through Medicaid or the
Affordable Care Act.
"It's very frustrating to have to tell them that there
are no options for them, essentially," she said, "and
the research has shown over and over again that when
parents have coverage, children are much more likely to
have coverage, and to have health care as well."
According to the research, nearly half of the uninsured
parents who were studied lived in southern states and
more than half were Latino.
Photos/graphics and links added by the Observer
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