Florida needs a huge dose of compassion
Living in Florida can be hazardous to your health.
Keeping the state’s economy afloat requires a constant stream of visitors, so Florida promotes itself as a land of perpetual fun in the sun, a carefree place to relax and be healthy. But those who live here know the sales pitch isn’t true.
Far too many people in Florida can’t afford health insurance — an estimated 2.6 million. With no access to care, they are forced to seek charity care at hospital emergency rooms, which drives up the cost of care for everybody else. Florida’s infant mortality and premature birth rates are higher than the national average. The leading cause of death among children is gun violence. In its latest rating of childhood well-being, using 16 criteria, Florida ranked 35th among states, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation. And the state constantly ranks close to the bottom for per capita mental health funding. That’s not healthy. It’s pretty sick.
In the annual session that begins next Tuesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature could make Florida a healthier place practically overnight. But the state remains one of 11 holdout states that refuse to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, which offers states federal matching money if they stretch the safety net to include people with incomes just above the poverty line.
North Carolina, which has a Republican Legislature, will soon expand its Medicaid program to cover many more poor adults and children in what Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper calls “a monumental step.”
It could happen in Florida, too, but it won’t. In fact, things in Florida could soon get much worse.
The state’s Medicaid rolls ballooned during the pandemic to more than 5.6 million, about one-fourth of the state’s population. In April, as many as 1.8 million of them, including many children, could lose coverage entirely due to the federal “unwinding” of expanded Medicaid coverage during the pandemic.
All eight Democrats in the Florida congressional delegation urge DeSantis to take immediate action to ensure that all those people keep some form of coverage during the transition period known as redetermination.
Led by Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa, they sent the governor a letter that said in part: “We encourage you to send a strong message that eligible families should not lose Medicaid.” The March 1 letter noted that Congress has provided for federal matching money through the end of 2023 to help patients transition to other coverage plans.
“Any gap in health coverage can be devastating and potentially exposes people and families to high burdens of medical debt,” they wrote, “so it is critical that Florida use every tool at its disposal to prevent a mass disenrollment of individuals, especially children.”
Sadly, this latest warning will likely go unheeded. The state should have expanded Medicaid years ago to help the working poor. But it did not, and left billions of dollars on the table.
They diverted money from a new online sales tax to benefit employers, who are less likely to offer their workers health insurance than businesses in most states.
A proposed statewide citizen initiative by Florida Decides Healthcare that would ask voters to expand Medicaid has been delayed until 2026 due to the many obstacles that Republicans have put in the way of petition-gathering campaigns.
Elsewhere on the health care front, the prognosis in Florida is slightly more hopeful.
As many seniors live with the burden of outrageous prescription drug costs, DeSantis continues a three-year effort to allow the imports of cheaper drugs from Canada to the U.S. But with the federal government resisting, DeSantis sued the Food & Drug Administration last summer, accusing the FDA of foot-dragging. The White House has rejected those allegations in court.
First lady Casey DeSantis has made improved mental health and substance abuse a priority through her Hope for Healing Florida initiative. Legislators should put much more money into those efforts, and pass sensible laws on fentanyl test kits and overdose protection.
Sen. Tina Polsky, D-Boca Raton, and others want Florida to create scholarships and a loan forgiveness program for professionals who agree to work in the state for a year or longer to address a shortage of mental health professionals.
These are sound ideas. But the best way to improve health in Florida is by expanding Medicaid, and it deserves the Legislature’s full support.
The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board includes Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson, Opinion Page Editor Krys Fluker and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, and Anderson. Send letters to insight@orlandosentinel. com.