Press Release: Advocates Urge Lawmakers to Reject Medicaid Work Reporting Rules that Threaten Health Coverage
- 5 days ago
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Advocates Urge Lawmakers to Reject Medicaid Work Reporting Rules that Threaten Health Coverage New “Deathbed Exemption” Amendment Would Force Terminally Ill Parents to Prove a 6-month Life Expectancy to Keep Medicaid Tallahassee, Fla. – Today, Monday, March 2nd, a Florida Senate committee moved to keep pushing more Floridians into Florida’s expansive Medicaid coverage gap with SB 1758, legislation that would implement work reporting requirements in a state that has refused to expand the health care coverage program for low-income Floridians. The legislation goes further than the recently federally-passed H.R. 1, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which exempted non-expansion states from work reporting requirements.
As the state grapples with high health care costs and an additional hundreds of thousands of uninsured Floridians and skyrocketing insurance premiums as a result of the expired enhanced premium tax credits, this move by the Florida Senate is unnecessary and burdensome. It will cause more people to lose their health care: if they’re working, they’ll work themselves into the coverage gap; and for the small number of Floridians that aren’t working, they’ll be kicked off despite their life circumstances–like dealing with extreme illness or caretaking for their family.
The law includes a list of exemptions to work reporting requirements - including a newly added deathbed exemption. With the cost of administering these requirements, and horror stories in other states of work reporting requirements gone bad, Floridians should ask their Senators if the cost of building a new, complicated bureaucracy layer and value of rejecting health care access for vulnerable Floridians is an efficient use of state and federal dollars, time, and resources.
Ahead of the meeting, 25 organizations joined a strong letter of opposition to the work reporting requirements to members of the Senate Appropriations Committee. These organizations working to minimize the harms of the work reporting requirements include American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, Catalyst Miami, Florida Health Justice Project, Florida Policy Institute, Florida Voices for Health, The AIDS Institute, UnidosUS, Southern Poverty Law Center, 1199SEIU, and many others. Below you can find quotes from members of these organizations. If you would like to interview any of these advocacy organizations, please contact Jossie Barroso at jossie@healthyfla.org.
Sadaf Knight, CEO of Florida Policy Institute, said, “Make no mistake. SB 1758 would push thousands of Floridians — including deeply low-income parents and young adults — off Medicaid and into the healthcare coverage gap. The latest amendment to the bill reveals something deeply troubling: a single mother, who is terminally ill and making less than $8,000 a year while raising two children, could be required to report 80 hours of work each month to keep her healthcare coverage. Only those with prognoses of six months or less to live would be exempt. It is hard to grasp how we arrived at a policy that effectively asks someone facing the end of their life to prove they are dying quickly enough to keep their Medicaid. It’s almost unfathomable.”
Scott Darius, Executive Director of Florida Voices for Health said, “We fully support efforts to build public trust in the efficiency and effectiveness of programs like Medicaid. Still, work requirements in a non-expansion state like Florida mean more money wasted on administrative costs and fewer hardworking people getting the care they need.”
Aurelie Colon Larrauri, Senior Florida Policy Associate of Southern Poverty Law Center said, “Florida’s families deserve access to healthcare, not hurdles put in place to make it harder for them to access it. There are already work requirements in place. Creating additional work requirements, which are not mandated for non-expansion states, will force Florida’s families into the medicaid gap that already includes 260,000 Floridians. Coupled with the other provisions, SB 1758 will have unintended consequences to those who need these help the most. At a time when the cost of living in Florida is extremely high, we should be helping those who need the assistance, not making it harder for them.”
Melanie Williams, Policy Director of Florida Health Justice Project stated, “SB 1758 is fiscally reckless and administratively unrealistic. Florida already spent $1 million defending wrongful Medicaid terminations in federal court, and DCF has stated in court filings that they do not have the budget to address court mandated changes. Layering a complex work requirement system onto an agency struggling as it is doesn’t create accountability, it creates more chaos, more litigation risk, and more wrongful loss of health coverage for vulnerable Floridians.”
Rachel Klein, Deputy Executive Director of The AIDS Institute, said: “Federal law clearly prohibits non-expansion states like Florida from implementing a Medicaid work requirement, and for good reason. Work requirements are expensive to administer and force people off Medicaid even if they are working or are unable to work because they have a serious medical condition or are caring for sick family members. Florida’s taxpayer dollars would be better spent to fill health care gaps and ensure access to necessary health care for vulnerable Floridians than building more systems to deny that care.”
Coy Jones, Florida Political Director for 1199SEIU, said: “Our union of frontline caregivers is painfully aware of how many Floridians are already struggling with affordability and access to essential healthcare. The added work requirements and other administrative obstacles in SB 1758 are especially dangerous to our most vulnerable residents young to old. Sadly, SB 1758 is Tallahassee making Trump’s “Big Ugly Bill” even uglier for working Florida families.”
Ashley Lyerly, Senior Director of Advocacy for the American Lung Association, said: “The Medicaid work reporting requirements outlined in Senate Bill 1758 will result in people losing life-saving healthcare. This provision will create new, serious administrative barriers to accessing critical care for Floridians eligible for Medicaid. Failing to navigate these burdensome requirements could have life or death consequences. Time is not a luxury for those battling serious, acute and chronic lung diseases. No exemption criteria can circumvent the significant risk to the coverage and health of the people we represent.”
Susan Harbin, Senior Government Relations Director, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, said: “Conditioning coverage on work, when nearly all individuals are already working or unable to do so, creates administrative hurdles while jeopardizing health outcomes. Lawmakers are choosing to impose this requirement on working Floridian families with low incomes who are doing everything they can to get by. Work requirements create unreasonable barriers to care, making it harder for cancer patients and survivors to recover. Punishing people with cancer and other serious chronic diseases by terminating their health care will only make them sicker and less able to work, and will do nothing to lower the cost of health care for anyone.”
—----------------- To read an FPI analysis of the work reporting requirements in SB 1758, click here.
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