Medicaid

Florida earned a ranking among the worst in the country for women’s health care.

More than 1 million Americans use Medicaid to get addiction treatments like methadone. But as states update their systems, some patients have lost coverage. Even a short gap can be life-threatening.

As Florida and other states wait for Deloitte to make fixes in computer systems, Medicaid beneficiaries risk losing access to health care and food.

Florida KidCare, a childhood insurance option for some parents who lost coverage, is failing to offset the coverage gap left by the Medicaid unwinding.

The program had nearly 5.78 million beneficiaries in April 2023, but enrollment has steadily decreased since the end of the federal public health emergency.

A losing bidder has filed a lawsuit arguing that Florida health officials should be barred from moving forward with new Medicaid managed-care contracts until its fight for a contract is resolved.

The judge dismissed the state's lawsuit against two federal agencies and said the case should instead be an administrative challenge. Next stop is the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.

The new rule threatens the loss of insurance funds in an attempt to prevent discrimination based on sex, including gender identity. The judge wrote that state agencies faced "imminent injury" because of the rule.

The technology has generated notices with errors, sent Medicaid paperwork to the wrong addresses, and been frozen for hours at a time, according to state audits, court documents, and interviews.

Both states want to expand eligibility for the CHIP, but their approaches to charging low-income families premiums for the coverage showcase the nation’s ideological divide on helping the disadvantaged.

The state says 4.423 million people received care through the program last month, down from 4.459 million in April. It continued decreases that began last spring with the end of a public health emergency.

A filing in federal court in Tampa by the Justice Department is the latest move in a battle over guidelines issued for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which operates in Florida as KidCare.