Blocking Health Care Reform in Florida
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD, NYT
Florida’s destructive efforts to sabotage health care reform has drawn a much-needed response from the Obama administration. Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, has been visiting the state to encourage private groups to help residents understand what insurance policies and federal subsidies will be available to them when the enrollment period opens Oct. 1.
Florida has been shameless in attempting to destroy what top officials call “Obamacare,” with tactics that will deprive its own poor and middle-income citizens of the benefits of the national reform law. Although almost 25 percent of Florida’s population, or 3.8 million people, are uninsured, the state declined to expand its Medicaid program to cover more low-income residents despite extremely generous federal matching grants to pay for such expansions. And it refused to set up its own health care exchange, leaving that job to the federal government. A few months ago, the Republican-dominated Legislature and Republican governor stripped the state insurance commissioner’s office of its broad powers to hold down premium increases to affordable levels.
In the latest outrage, the state Department of Health on Sept. 9 ordered some 60 county health agencies, whose clinics treat large numbers of poor and uninsured people, to bar from their premises counselors, or “navigators,” seeking to inform people how to enroll in insurance plans and get subsidies under the health reform law. The department claimed this edict was consistent with its general policy of preventing outsiders from using county property for their own purposes and protecting individuals’ privacy. But the main goal was to keep counselors away from people apt to enroll in the health exchange.
Ms. Sebelius has awarded almost $8 million in grants to Florida organizations to hire and train outreach workers and another $8 million to community health centers for the same purpose. Businesses like CVS Caremark, Florida Blue and insurance brokers are also mounting campaigns to inform Florida residents about what the federal law provides. With the state government so adamantly obstructive, the success of health care reform in Florida will depend heavily on such private efforts.
(More here.)
Florida’s destructive efforts to sabotage health care reform has drawn a much-needed response from the Obama administration. Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, has been visiting the state to encourage private groups to help residents understand what insurance policies and federal subsidies will be available to them when the enrollment period opens Oct. 1.
Florida has been shameless in attempting to destroy what top officials call “Obamacare,” with tactics that will deprive its own poor and middle-income citizens of the benefits of the national reform law. Although almost 25 percent of Florida’s population, or 3.8 million people, are uninsured, the state declined to expand its Medicaid program to cover more low-income residents despite extremely generous federal matching grants to pay for such expansions. And it refused to set up its own health care exchange, leaving that job to the federal government. A few months ago, the Republican-dominated Legislature and Republican governor stripped the state insurance commissioner’s office of its broad powers to hold down premium increases to affordable levels.
In the latest outrage, the state Department of Health on Sept. 9 ordered some 60 county health agencies, whose clinics treat large numbers of poor and uninsured people, to bar from their premises counselors, or “navigators,” seeking to inform people how to enroll in insurance plans and get subsidies under the health reform law. The department claimed this edict was consistent with its general policy of preventing outsiders from using county property for their own purposes and protecting individuals’ privacy. But the main goal was to keep counselors away from people apt to enroll in the health exchange.
Ms. Sebelius has awarded almost $8 million in grants to Florida organizations to hire and train outreach workers and another $8 million to community health centers for the same purpose. Businesses like CVS Caremark, Florida Blue and insurance brokers are also mounting campaigns to inform Florida residents about what the federal law provides. With the state government so adamantly obstructive, the success of health care reform in Florida will depend heavily on such private efforts.
(More here.)
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