Cover Florida, 2 other plans to help uninsured hit snags

By Christine Jordan Sexton
10/1/2008 © Florida Health News

TALLAHASSEE -- While the number of uninsured Floridians continues to grow, new state initiatives aimed at helping residents get health insurance have stalled.

Today the state was supposed to announce which health insurers will be approved vendors for the ambitious Cover Florida program and be allowed to sell pared-back health insurance plans beginning Jan. 1 to Florida residents who have gone six months or more without insurance. 

Gov. Crist

Meanwhile, other initiatives to help the uninsured that were touted by Gov. Charlie Crist and the GOP-controlled Legislature in the spring also remain in limbo. They include a virtual marketplace for employers shopping for health coverage and a substantial change in insurance law that would allow parents to keep their adult children on their insurance policies until age 30. 

Holly Benson, Secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration, confirmed this week that the state wouldn’t make today’s announcement date on negotiations with the nine companies that expressed an interest in participating in Cover Florida. She said that information should be ready between Oct. 15 and 22.

The goal is to have contracts signed by “mid to late” November, Benson told Florida Health News. That would leave just six weeks to advertise the availability of the plans and have coverage in effect by Jan. 1. 

Benson said she hoped that the delay in negotiations would not affect startup of the program, which is supposed to provide

Benson

guaranteed access to health insurance, with a choice of at least two plans. Both would provide coverage for doctor’s office visits but only the more generous one would pay for emergency and hospital care. Crist has said the more generous health plan would cost $150 a month. 

Benson is not part of the state team that is negotiating with the nine companies and doesn’t know the fine details. AHCA spokesman Fernando Senra would say only that the delay was caused by “scheduling challenges.”

Meanwhile, the percent of uninsured citizens in Florida continues to rise. In August, the Census Bureau estimated that more than 20 percent of Floridians lacked coverage in 2007; the Kaiser Family Foundation has said that around one-fourth of state residents under age 65 are uninsured and that the rate is growing as the economy crumbles.
 
Saying he has a “sympathetic heart” to those who can’t afford health insurance, Crist made health care access his top priority for the 2008 legislative session. He lobbied aggressively for Cover Florida program, receiving near-unanimous approval.

The bill included a provision that allows certain adult offspring to stay on their parents’ health insurance policies until age 30. None will be able to take advantage of it, though, because of a lingering question: Who gets to decide whether the offspring remain on the policies, the employer who offers the plan or the parents? 

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida issued a “breaking news” bulletin to its agents Monday, saying it was suspending the optional coverage for these 25-to-30-year-old dependents until it gets an official interpretation of the law. The Office of Insurance Regulation will hold a workshop on the issue, according to spokesman Edward Domansky, but a date has not yet been scheduled. 

Another highly touted provision in this year’s reform bill was the establishment of a virtual health insurance market place. The Florida Health Choices program is employer- based; individuals could not enroll on their own. However, once an employer enrolls, all of its employees would be allowed to buy any of the products sold in the virtual marketplace. Those products could include not only traditional health insurance and managed care plans, but also non-traditional products, such as a set number of visits to chiropractors or massage therapists. 

Bean

A 15-member board has oversight of the Florida Health Choices program. The governor, Senate president and House speaker each gets four appointments. The remaining three members are representatives from the OIR, AHCA and the Department of Management Services. 

As of this morning, only House Speaker Marco Rubio, R-West Miami, had appointed people to the board, including Rep. Aaron Bean, the term-limited Republican lawmaker from Nassau County who championed the Florida Health Choices program. 

Bean said he’s contacted the offices of the Senate president and governor and expects the appointments soon, in time for the Florida Health Choices board to meet in the next two or three weeks. “I’m pushing,” he said.

He said government tends to be slow in getting new initiatives operating, and with all the new programs coming on line at once, delays are not surprising. 

“This has been the most powerful year of reform,” Bean said. “I think it’s going to take a while to sort it all out.”

--Christine Jordan Sexton can be reached at christinesextonwork@hotmail.com. Questions for the editor can be addressed to Carol.Gentry@FloridaHealthNews.org.