Medicaid coverage to end soon for nearly 1 million in Florida

About 900,000 Floridians, if not more, could lose medical coverage through the state’s Medicaid program beginning April 1, as the pandemic federal public health emergency comes to a close, state officials said.

More than 5.6 million Floridians receive Medicaid, or about a quarter of the state’s population, a large share of them poor children. The rolls have swollen by nearly 1.8 million people since 2020, when the federal government paid states extra money to keep people covered during the pandemic, even if they were no longer eligible.

But with the federal government phasing out those payments, the Florida Department of Children and Families this year will begin reviewing the eligibility of almost 5 million recipients, with the remainder addressed by other state and federal agencies.

The first to be reviewed will be recipients whose most recent income data showed they were no longer eligible, said Casey Penn, assistant secretary for economic self sufficiency at a state House committee meeting on Wednesday.

“We have around 900,000 individuals that we know, the last time we talked to them, they’re no longer eligible for Medicaid,” he said. “Those are gonna go first.”

Another priority will be to analyze about 850,000 recipients who have not responded to information requests and those who have not used Medicaid benefits over the past year. Children with complicated medical issues and other vulnerable populations will be the last to be checked, Penn said.

Those who lose coverage will be referred to alternatives, including Florida KidCare, a government-sponsored health insurance program, and federally subsidized health centers that treat low-income patients.

But many of those losing Medicaid will not be eligible for those programs, effectively creating a “looming tidal wave” of hundreds of thousands of newly uninsured people, said Erica Monet Li, a policy analyst at Florida Policy Institute, a Tallahassee nonprofit.

“This is a historic number of Floridians to potentially lose health coverage — 1 in 22 people — and all within the span of under 12 months,” Li said.

Their plight will once again highlight the state’s refusal to expand Medicaid as provided for through the Affordable Care Act, said Alison Yager, executive director of the Florida Health Justice Project.

Florida is one of only 11 states not to take advantage of the federal funding available to states that expand eligibility to more families and adults.

Florida’s Medicaid program covers children ages 5 and younger in households that make $33,408 or less and older children whose parents make up to $31,795.

But there is no coverage for parents who earn more than $7,000 per year, and adults with no children are ineligible no matter how little they earn. Only four states in the nation have stricter Medicaid eligibility, according to the institute.

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