Florida Strips Healthcare from Thousands of Children Despite Law

(TheConservativeTimes.org) – Florida is “callously” stripping healthcare benefits from thousands of children in lower-income families despite the new law put in place to protect them. More than twenty thousand children have been disenrolled from Florida KidCare which is a program that’s part of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP. This program helps families who are still low-income but don’t quite meet the threshold to qualify for Medicaid.

Healthcare officials in Florida said that some of them were removed for non-payment of premiums which is prohibited by the “continuous eligibility clause” in the Consolidated Appropriations Act. This clause states that the beneficiary should still receive one year of benefits if at least one premium payment is paid.

The Governor, Ron DeSantis, pushed back on the rule saying that it went against state laws requiring monthly premium payments and saying that it makes CHIP an “entitlement program.” As a response to DeSantis, the state is continuing to remove people from the program even though the ruling on this hasn’t been set.

Since April of this year, there have been at least five thousand children removed from the program every month. Florida says that these numbers are normal and that this includes children who are too old for benefits or moving to a different plan.

“It’s just enormously cruel and a crisis of callousness by our governor and state of Florida who are willing to sacrifice sick children for their political aims,” said the Democratic US congresswoman Kathy Castor.

“In the end, it saves everyone money and saves families’ heartache when young children can stay healthy and well. But Ron DeSantis loves a lawsuit. Florida is the only state in the country that is so upset that children are going to get healthcare that he’s suing in federal court,” she continued.

Many have said that Florida’s practices when it comes to children’s health benefits are allowing them to not only kick children off of Medicaid but also from CHIP fully.