FlaglerLive | September 17, 2017
Florida’s rate of uninsured would have been lower had Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Legislature not prevented the federally-funded expansion of Medicaid.
FlaglerLive | May 31, 2016
While the requested increases for Florida vary from zero to 40 percent, all requested increases for silver plans are under 14 percent, and half are under 3 percent.
FlaglerLive | April 26, 2016
While senators have focused heavily on access, the House and Scott have pushed for health-care changes that include reducing or eliminating some longstanding regulations. They contend that such ideas would create more competition and lower health-care costs.
FlaglerLive | October 14, 2015
It’s 1.1 million fewer than in 2013, but almost a third of the uninsured are eligible for Obamacare but haven’t enrolled, 15% have chosen not to enroll in employee-provided health care, and the rest are uninsured for a variety of other reasons.
FlaglerLive | September 24, 2015
Some 6.9 percent of Florida high-school students smoke cigarettes, but 15.8 percent use electronic cigarettes, which allow inhalation of vaporized nicotine.
FlaglerLive | August 31, 2015
Thousands of parents were slammed with new rates with less than a month to pay, though they’ll have a chance to leave Florida’s plan for Obamacare in a special enrollment period.
FlaglerLive | June 9, 2015
Five years have passed since the University of West Florida’s Dr. Raid Amin and his team alerted the state to the presence of cancer clusters in Florida, the state Department of Health remains mum, seemingly uninterested in investigating the issue.
FlaglerLive | June 1, 2015
Flagler County Health Department Administrator Patrick Johnson is resigning at the end of the month to take a public health post in North Carolina as county departments in Florida see their roles shift and diminish.
FlaglerLive | May 27, 2015
House Republicans filed six bills Wednesday that delve into hot-button issues such as getting rid of a regulatory process for new or expanded hospitals and allowing advanced-registered nurse practitioners and physician assistants to prescribe controlled substances.
FlaglerLive | May 20, 2015
As Gov. Rick Scott’s newly created health-care commission prepares to meet Wednesday to begin sifting through data about hospital funding, the governor’s request for information has been met with hospitals essentially telling him to go look it up.
FlaglerLive | May 7, 2015
Lawyers for the state asked Thursday for a federal judge to immediately bar the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from considering whether the state has expanded Medicaid as the agency weighs a decision on $2.2 billion in funding for hospitals and other health-care providers in Florida.
FlaglerLive | May 3, 2015
Lawmakers will come back sometime in May or June for a special session to negotiate and pass a budget. But with the 60-day regular session formally ending Friday, here is where 10 major issues stand.
FlaglerLive | December 15, 2014
A coalition of businesses groups, local officials and healthcare industry representatives has rolled out a plan to insure nearly one million low-income Floridians who fall in the so-called Medicaid coverage gap.
FlaglerLive | September 2, 2014
The number of Floridians enrolled in individual health plans under the Affordable Care Act in June was 866,485, with a 23 percent increase projected by 2015.
FlaglerLive | July 24, 2014
The latest round of paybacks brings Florida’s three-year total from the Affordable Care Act’s rebate program to almost $220 million. This year’s rebate will average $65 per family in Florida, according to the report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
FlaglerLive | July 21, 2014
Florida Blue snagged a third of all new policies under Obamacare, but rates are going up due to a lack of younger and healthy enrollees and a greater-than-expected surge in people seeking expensive health services.
FlaglerLive | July 16, 2014
Judging by the grant totals of other states, Florida appears to have forfeited at least $100 million and possibly $300 million or more, not even including $51 billion the state is forfeiting by saying no to Medicaid expansion.
FlaglerLive | June 19, 2014
The $68 a month average premium is considerably less than the national average of $82. The plans are subsidized through tax credits taken in advance. Ninety-one percent of those who enrolled in Florida received the financial help, averaging $278 a month.
FlaglerLive | May 5, 2014
Florida lawmakers ended the 2014 legislative session after passing a budget and a flurry of other bills dealing with issues such as child welfare and school vouchers. But hundreds of bills died as lawmakers headed home to gear up for re-election campaigns. Here are 10 issues that passed during the session and 10 issues that failed.
FlaglerLive | April 10, 2014
The bill would protect private for-profit trauma centers, allow for independent practice for nurse practitioners and allow out-of-state doctors to participate in telehealth without a Florida license. The Florida Medical Association opposes the latter two.
FlaglerLive | April 1, 2014
And yet only one in four Floridians who qualifies for a subsidy had enrolled in a plan by March 1, leaving 1 million eligible residents uninsured. A mother describes how the law’s employee-insurance provision barred her family from subsidies.
FlaglerLive | February 26, 2014
A House bill would give advanced-practice nurses more authority, including prescribing of controlled substances, and set up a pathway to independent practice, not supervised by physicians. But Senate President Don Gaetz opposes it.
FlaglerLive | February 18, 2014
By the end of January, nearly 300,000 Floridians had enrolled in a new health plan through Obamacare — a surge that left most other states in the dust, despite state officials’ opposition to the Affordable Care Act and the relative scarcity of helpers available.
FlaglerLive | January 20, 2014
Many who signed up and paid Florida Blue for their new plan between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31 say the insurer has lost them in its computer system. Now, when they go to the doctor or try to get a prescription filled, they have to pay the bill themselves or cancel.
FlaglerLive | November 25, 2013
Consumer groups, hospitals and insurers are clamoring for Florida to take the $51 billion in federal funds that have been offered to the state over the next decade to provide health coverage to the working poor. But those who are tuned in politically — even those who desperately want it to happen — say it’s very unlikely in 2014.
FlaglerLive | October 5, 2013
Consumers shopping in the new health insurance marketplaces will face a bewildering array of competing plans in some counties and sparse options in other places, with people in some areas of the country having to pay much more for the identical level of coverage than consumers elsewhere.
FlaglerLive | September 9, 2013
Eight groups that are hiring and training “navigators” to help uninsured Floridians enroll in Obamacare have been sent letters by 15 GOP members of a U.S. House committee seeking information on their activities — a letter the Obama administration called a “blatant and shameful attempt to intimidate.”
FlaglerLive | September 2, 2013
RAND study findings stand in stark contrast to the widely publicized predictions of Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty that the individual market would see rate increases of 30 to 40 percent for next year.
FlaglerLive | August 21, 2013
There is no danger that so-called “navigators” will steal people’s identities or feed information into a giant federal database, said Greg Mellowe, policy director for the consumer group Florida CHAIN. The group is one of the non-profits that will get a share of federal grant money for the “navigator” program.
FlaglerLive | July 29, 2013
in a pattern of politically motivated rejections by Florida itself, the state got the lowest amount of health-care reform act grant funding per capita – behind all 50 states and the District of Columbia – in 2011. While state agencies received the bulk of federal health grants in other states, it was the reverse in Florida.
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