THE ISSUE

Accessible health care is fundamental to a healthy society.  We must work to ensure that our health care system works for all Floridians, especially our children. 

The 1998 Florida Legislature created the Florida Kid Care program to make affordable health insurance available to low and moderate-income Florida children.  Florida Kid Care consists of several components:  Medicaid for children, the MediKids program, Healthy Kids, and the Children’s Medical Services (CMS) Network.  These programs are meant to provide a seamless network to ensure coverage for all of the children whose families live at incomes at or below 200% of the FPL or have special needs. 

FCC Position – Enroll All Eligible Kids in Florida KidCare Programs

To that end, we have a great interest in Florida Kid Care programs, and stand with many others seeking coverage for every eligible Florida child and teen under Florida KidCare.   

We are puzzled by declining overall enrollment in the constitutive programs and concerned that enrollment continues at levels far below the number of children estimated to be eligible.  Florida is not maximizing its federal share of funds, and children are not getting the coverage – nor presumably, the care – that they need. 

As the legislature considers new policies for the existing programs of the Florida Kid Care Program, we recommend the following steps:

1. Creation of a single administration for marketing, eligibility, contracting, quality assurance and financing.

2. Sufficient funding to ensure that every eligible child who applies and is found eligible can participate in the program. 

3. Restore and fund KidCare community coordination, retention efforts and outreach to ensure participation by eligible uninsured children.  Specific funds should be allocated for hard-to-reach populations.

4. Increase reimbursement levels for physician services to at least Medicare levels for services rendered to children to ensure access to care.

5. Increase fees for children’s dental services in all components to increase access.

6. Utilize electronic data to verify applicant information to greatest possible extent.

7. Provide exceptions to prohibitions against participation when employer-based coverage is lost.

The State of Florida has made great strides in providing health care to Florida’s children through the Florida Kid Care Program.  However, thousands of Florida’s children remain uninsured.  We must extend access to quality health care to all our children, and this will require even broader health care reforms. 

Contact: Michael Sheedy, Associate Director for Health, msheedy@flacathconf.org, 850-205-6824.

 Last updated: October 1, 2007