Health Advocates Warn Florida Bills Would Deepen Harm from Federal Medicaid and SNAP Cuts
- 5 days ago
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Health Advocates Warn Florida Bills Would Deepen Harm from Federal Medicaid and SNAP Cuts Tallahassee, Fla. - As the federal “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (H.R. 1) threatens nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts nationwide and puts an estimated 2.2 million Floridians at risk of losing health coverage, health and nutrition advocates warned today that SB 1758 and HB 693 put forward by Florida lawmakers would go even further by compounding harm for working families already struggling with rising costs, adding unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles, and repealing commonsense laws that ensures high quality care in communities across the state.
During a mid-session virtual media briefing, representatives from Florida Voices for Health, Florida Policy Institute, Florida Health Justice Project, The AIDS Institute, and 1199-SEIU outlined how the Florida proposals exceed federal requirements and would intensify the affordability crisis facing families across the state.
Rather than shielding Floridians from those impacts of H.R. 1, SB 1758 and HB 693 includes measures that go beyond the federal requirements. These measures include undoing a bipartisan decision to keep health care coverage for lawfully residing children, adding work requirements for Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for seniors and parents with teens, and more, increasing the likelihood eligible Floridians lose coverage because of paperwork barriers.
“We should not be looking to add red tape to our safety net programs in the wake of large federal cuts,” said Erica Li, Health Policy Analyst at the Florida Policy Institute. “Broadly speaking, both of these bills make health care and food access more difficult to attain in Florida, and they add unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles, go further than the policies passed in H.R.1, and some provisions do not align with federal guidelines. They will leave families hungrier and leave more children without health care.”
Florida already faces severe affordability pressures. Nearly 4 million Floridians rely on Medicaid, including children, seniors, and people with disabilities. Roughly 3 million residents depend on SNAP to put food on the table. More than 500,000 low-income adults remain uninsured because the state has not expanded Medicaid.
Speakers also raised alarm about HB 693’s repeal of Florida’s longstanding policy allowing lawfully residing immigrant children to enroll in Medicaid and CHIP without a five-year waiting period, a bipartisan decision made in 2016.
“Federal law allows Florida to continue covering these children,” said Melanie Williams with the Florida Health Justice Project. “HB 693 goes beyond federal requirements and would increase the number of uninsured children in a state that already has more than 400,000 uninsured kids. Children should not lose health care because lawmakers choose to narrow eligibility.”
Advocates warned that more uninsured children will mean delayed preventive care, worsening chronic conditions, and increased emergency room visits, shifting costs onto hospitals and taxpayers.
In addition to coverage barriers, advocates criticized HB 693’s repeal of Florida’s Certificate of Need (CON) protections, which require new health facilities to demonstrate community need before opening.
Coy Jones, Political Director of 1199-SEIU, which represents 35,000 health care workers across Florida, said eliminating CON risks reducing access to essential health care in underserved rural and urban areas while opening the door to waste and fraud.
“Certificate of Need protects patients and taxpayers so health care providers can't just cherry-pick the most profitable areas to open facilities without considering the real community need,” Jones said. “It's policy that works, and eliminating this safeguard invites higher costs, less stability, and lower levels of care in our communities."
Florida ranks near the bottom nationally in cost-of-living pressures. Housing shortages, soaring insurance premiums, and rising grocery prices have left many families living paycheck to paycheck.
Advocates also honed in on the additional work requirements in these two pieces of policy. SB 1758 would require mostly parents of teens to work during school hours, forcing them to work themselves into Florida’s already wide coverage gap.
“This is a real catch-22 for the parents because it would either kick them off of Medicaid because they’re complying or because they’re not,” said Rachel Klein with The AIDS Institute. “It doesn’t make sense for Florida. Not only will it add a lot of administrative hurdles and expenses, but it also would not be legal since only expansion states are allowed to require Medicaid recipients to work 80 hours a month.”
Seniors and parents with teens would also need to work more hours than the federal law requires to be eligible for food assistance. “1 in 7 Floridians already face hunger, and these policies will make it harder for hungry people to access food,” said Cindy Huddleston with the Florida Policy Institute.
The coalition urged lawmakers to reject the bills in their current form and prioritize policies that protect children, stabilize working families, and strengthen Florida’s health care system.
You can find a recording of the 30-minute briefing at the link here (password: xglZdx2$).
For more information or to speak with one of the panelists, contact Jossie Barroso at jossie@healthyfla.org. |
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